Let there be dragons
by WriterKos
Summary: A murder leads Team Gibbs to a world that they had no idea existed. And it was just around the corner. Crossover with X-files. Response to the Paranormal Challenge at NFA. Proud Winner 3rd Place Best Original Character February 2011 NFA Hinky Awards
1. Prologue: Alley of death

**Title: ****Let there be dragons  
Author: WriterKos  
Rating: FR15  
Parings: Surprise pairings.  
Characters: McGee, Tony, Ziva, Gibbs, Abby, Ducky, Palmer, Allison Hart, OCs galore.  
Genres: Drama, Action, First Time, Crossover, all rolled into one.  
Warnings: AU, Paranormal, Supernatural, Sex, mentions of abuse  
Summary: A murder leads Team Gibbs to a world that they had no idea existed. And it was just around the corner. Crossover with X-files. Response to the Paranormal Challenge at NFA.**

**a/n 1: New WIP. Yep, I'm crazy. All I needed was another WIP. Hey baby, can you spell AU? I'm going way out of Canon here, a complete universe out of it. I'm going to mention briefly some aspects of season 7, and then diverge into my own little (un)happy world.**

**a/n 2: No elves, demons, dragons, fairies or gryphons were harmed on the writing of these fanfiction. After all, they are myths, aren't they?**

**a/n 3: I don't like begging, but reviews, please? ****They make me write faster.**

**Prologue: Alley of death**

**"So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending."J.R.R. Tolkien**

Yellow eyes followed the progress of the young woman walking down the street. From its privileged position on top of the building, its beast form mixed with the shadows and mist of the dark night, using the gargoyle statues as cover for its progress. Its dark emerald green scales glittered, shimmering as the light shone on it and was engulfed by the powerful muscular body. Despite its size, it moved gracefully from shadow to shadow, just with a light fluttering of its wings to seek balance for its large frame against the unforgiving winds coming from Northeast.

It had felt the scent of predators earlier today, and as it had some time it decided to investigate the shadows that cover the city. It saw the approach of two hunters, following the prey, and it crouches on top of the building to watch its demise. It wasn't allowed to interfere, under the price of death, but it at least had warned the woman of the dangers of this area. Now she would pay for not heeding its warnings.

They attack her swiftly, one forcibly grabbing her by her arms and the other covering her mouth to silence any warning shout she might make. They drag her to one empty alley, where their thirst for blood is sated with her dying screams echoing briefly in the dark night, and finally silence.

There is nothing it can do. Only watch them feast on the flesh and blood. The beast leaves its position, and goes home.


	2. Premonitions and gut feelings

_**Chapter 1: Premonitions and gut feelings  
**_  
"Poor child, she never stood a chance," says NCIS resident M.E. Donald 'Ducky' Mallard, studying the mangled body on the floor before him.

Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs approaches his long term friend, and kneels by the body.

The slaughtered victim was lying on the floor, her limbs in an awkward position, as if her arms and legs had been violently pulled from its sockets, with an inhuman strength. Her face is forever paralyzed in a rectus of terror, as if her last scream of terror had been cut short by the brutality that had befallen on her.

"Time of death, Duck," says Gibbs, studying the face of the young lieutenant in the eternal rectus of death.

Ducky leans over the body and looks at the protruding liver thermometer, trying to get a reading of the equipment.

"Considering the liver temperature, and the chill in the morning air, I would say between two am and five am this morning."

Gibbs studies her body again, and sees something peeking from her trousers pockets. He dons latex gloves, and gingerly takes the small piece of paper out.

"What is it?" Jimmy stares at the paper in Gibbs' hand, as Gibbs slowly unfolds it to see what's written in it.

"It seems our dead lieutenant was an avid reader," he shows the paper to Ducky, and he recognizes it as a battered paper library card, with several marks of returning books on it. He puts the card in an evidence bag, and pockets it.

Gibbs stands up and goes to his agents, who are taking pictures and sketching the scene. He sees DiNozzo making a disgusted face at the strange substance he stepped on the floor, and trying valiantly to scrap it away on the curb. He walks up to him.

"Find anything interesting, DiNozzo?"

"These are four hundred bucks shoes, Boss, I can't believe I stepped on this, why people don't clean after their dogs? This place is disgusting…"

Gibbs fixes his steely stare on DiNozzo, who finally stops his whining, gulps and start reciting what he knows.

"She was attacked on the street, probably by more than one suspect. One of them hit her head on the wall there," he points a splatter on the wall, where dark hair and blood can be seen against the brickwork, "and then dragged her behind this garbage dumpster, where…" he looks at the broken body, "they proceeded to beat and almost eviscerate her."

Gibbs turns to McGee, who is coming down the alley towards them after collecting witnesses' statements.

"What have you got?"

"Our victim is Lieutenant Dorothy Horovitz, 25, single, never married, she rents an apartment six blocks from here and this is her usual route from her night classes at the Community College to her home. She's an attaché from the JAG office, worked there as a secretary."

Gibbs looks up and down the alley, at the fire stairs and the closed windows of the buildings on each side, "Any witnesses? Anyone heard or seen anything?"

McGee shakes his head, sadly, "no, there was a bar fight two blocks down that spilled to the street, and apparently all eyes were turned to this. The cops, when they arrived to round up everyone, found the corpse of our Lieutenant, and initially thought that she had been part of it, until they saw that." He points to something on the wall and motions with his hand, silently asking Gibbs to approach some strange marks on the wall.

Gibbs frowns as he looks at it, as he looks at the deep claw marks on the brick wall, almost as if it had been made by a beast. He leans towards it, and his gloved hand softly touches the marks. The claws were evenly spaced, as his fingers in his hand.

"Any idea what kind of beast could have made this?" he looks at McGee, who is looking at the marks with the same frown Gibbs is sure is on his forehead.

"No idea, but I've already collected samples and took pictures of it. Hopefully Abby will be able to tell us something."

Gibbs nods, and then takes the evidence bag with the library cards from his pocket and shows it to McGee, "get DiNozzo and check this out, see if they saw our dead lieutenant speaking with anyone, maybe they can tell us something about her."

McGee nods, "On it, Boss."

McGee turns and walks towards DiNozzo, and soon they are on their way to the library.

Ducky helps Palmer put the dead lieutenant on the stretcher. Once she's there, Palmer slowly moves the stretcher out of the alley towards the morgue van. Ducky stands up, feeling the weight of every one of his years heavily on his painful knees, and walks briskly to where his old friend is standing.

"Jethro." 

"Yes, Ducky," Gibbs watches Palmer move the dead lieutenant then turn to the M.E. He senses Ducky's agitation, and frowns as he doesn't know the reason for it.

"Do you believe in premonitions?"

Gibbs is sure his eyebrows are up to his hairline. Ducky knew him as very few people, and was aware that Gibbs did not believe in this mumbo jumbo.

"What kind of premonitions?"

Ducky shakes his head, deep in thought, "A man like you, who relies deeply on the feelings of your gut, would certainly be willing to hear the feelings of an old man like myself."

Gibbs turns to Ducky, and frowns.

"Why, Ducky? Are you having a premonition about this case?"

Ducky nods, "You could say so."

Gibbs stares at Ducky, patiently waiting for him to say what's on his mind. Ducky looks at the claws marks, then at the blood splattered on the floor and walls.

"I have the feeling that this is just the beginning." He stares at Gibbs for a moment, and then starts walking in a hurried step towards the morgue van, where Palmer just closed the doors and is going to the driver's seat.

"The beginning of what?" shouts Gibbs to Ducky's back, who turns and shrugs.

"I have no idea, my friend, and that worries me deeply."

He leaves, letting Gibbs staring at his back with a frown on his face. 


	3. Storybook beginnings

**Chapter 2: Storybook beginnings**

Tony and McGee take the small library card and go to the library. It is located in an old firefighter's building built in classical way which it was renovated to hold the donated books of a philanthropist back in the forties and now houses the books of the whole neighborhood. Its Dorian columns and gargoyles on top of the building give shivers to DiNozzo, who ignores his own feelings of dread and enter the building, being followed by McGee.

There, they are directed to talk to Mrs. Travis, who is the library supervisor, by Annie, a small mousy grad student who is always reading romance books. Mrs. Travis, upon looking at the library card, frowns and tells them to talk to the librarian responsible of that section, who probably could give them more information.

They start following through the corridors of books to the back of the library. They get to the history section, and they are not surprised to see a room filled from top to bottom with several volumes.

However, they are surprised to see, right in the middle of it, a tall brunette, with very white porcelain skin and long black thick hair in a very severe bun on the back of her head.

Her face was like those paintings of old, with perfect unblemished skin, deep hazel eyes with little green dots and a mouth made to be kissed. Her eyes were hidden behind the most hideous glasses Tony has ever seen in his entire life, and she was dressed in very drab clothes, a gray long sleeved pullover that has seen better days and old gray skirt all the way to her feet, in an obvious attempt to hide her more feminine attributes. Also, for some reason, she was wearing black gloves.

"Martha Simmons, I presume," says Tony, looking at the woman before him, and he sees the worried glance she throws at their badges before looking at their faces.

She grabs another book from the table, and starts walking towards the shelves in the letter E, and puts the books in her hands in there.

"You presume correctly, sir."

McGee grimaces, and looks around the library, "It's Special Agent Timothy McGee and Anthony DiNozzo, ma'am, we're federal agents. From NCIS." 

Both McGee and DiNozzo show their badges to her.

She glances at them and at their badges, shrugs, and moves to the next shelf, putting away the books on the letter G.

"How can I help you, agents?" She says in a monotone voice, completely unimpressed with their badges.

"What can you tell us about Lieutenant Dorothy Horovitz?"

They see her freeze in her action of putting the books back in the shelves for a moment. 

"Dory?" She asks without looking at the agents, and Tony glances at McGee.

"You knew her?"

She sighs, and starts putting the books back on the shelves again, and walks to the reading table and checks the titles of the books on the table, and separates them alphabetically.

"She borrowed the History of the Clearances last week, and asked my opinion about more Scottish history books. She hasn't returned it yet."

McGee frowns, "Well, ma'am, she's not returning it so soon."

"Why?"

Martha takes the books with authors starting with L, and takes them to the proper shelf.

"She's dead."

Tony sees Martha flinch when she hears the news, and after a moment she keeps putting the books away.

"That's tragic news."

She says in a monotone voice, then turns to the next pile of books, and keeps returning the books to its proper places.

"You see," Tony approaches the librarian, and frowns as he sees her flinching at his proximity. He keeps his distance away from her.

He takes the library card in the evidence bag and shows it to Martha, "she was killed only six blocks from here, and this was in her pocket."

Martha looks curiously at the library card, and lowers her glasses to see it better.

"Yes, that's Dory's card, I remember stamping it and telling her to pay attention to the dates. She kept forgetting to return it on the right due date."

Tony smiles thinly and pockets the evidence bag.

"Well, now she doesn't have to bother with dates, does she?"

Martha stares at him for a moment with serious eyes, and Tony's smile slips away. McGee hits Tony with a jab on his ribs, and when Martha starts walking away again, he follows her.

"What can you tell us about the lieutenant?"

Martha stops gathering the books for a moment, and glances at Tony and Tim, before answering in a soft voice, that they almost have to make an effort to hear her.

"Quiet. In her own. Not very talkative. She was trying to trace back her descendants from Scotland from her mother's side, so she was reading everything she could put her hands on about the clearances and Scottish immigration to the States. Sometimes we would sit down and talk about her progress."

Martha smiles softly, remembering the young woman, "she was a good person."

Tony and McGee nod to the info she gives them, "have you ever saw her speaking to anyone? Any person who might hold some grudge against her?"

Martha shakes her head, "I never saw her speaking to anyone, and our interactions were merely about the books she was using in her research. I had no idea of her occupation, neither of any enemies she might have."

There is some noise in the corridors down in the back, and Martha looks back towards it, "I'm sorry, I'm needed elsewhere."

She nods to the agents, and walks in a fast step towards the Math corridor. In it, a very beefy teenager was shoving a skinny boy against the shelves, holding a book on his hand over the small boy.

Typical bully attitude.

Martha arrives, and orders quiet. She gets the book out of the teenager's hand and orders him out, who, after some complaining, obeys. She consoles the small boy, and gives him the book.

The bully however, just to disturb the peace of the library, throws several books which had been alphabetized from the table to the floor, just to piss off the librarian.

He looks snickering at the librarian, who looks from the books to the laughing teenager. She frowns and takes a deep breath, and the boy suddenly stops laughing and falls to the floor.

Out of nowhere, a thick calculus book slides from a top shelf and hit the boy right on the head, driving him unconscious. People rush to help him, but the librarian just folds her arms and sees the commotion with a small smile on her lips.

Tony and McGee watch all that happen just a few feet from where they are, and see the librarian consoling the small boy and guiding him away from the fallen bully on the floor.

McGee's eyes cross with hers for a moment, and for a brief second they stare at each other. McGee feels a shiver run up his spine, and the librarian looks away, then looks at the little boy and takes his hand in her gloved hand and takes him away.

McGee keeps staring at back of the librarian, until Tony calls his attention and guides him out of the librarian. But McGee can't help but think back on the librarian and the bully and the skinny boy.

McGee frowns as he replays the scene on his head. The book had been two shelves away from the bully, and it had levitated until it was above the teenager's head, where it fell.

Then he thinks back on the librarian, and tries to convince himself that it had been a trick of the light hitting on her thick lenses, as he could swear that, just for a brief moment, her eyes shone yellow as she looked at him.

A/N: REVIEW! REVIEW! Please.


	4. How man came to rule the world

_**Chapter **__**3: How man came to rule the world  
**_  
Time is meaningless when the very fabric of the universe slowly runs in your veins, and your existence is bound to watch the endless toils of the mortals' souls on their everyday battles.

Today becomes history. History is written by the winners of the battles that today rule the world, and the tales of the conquered and vanquished are lost forever. Facts are bent to fit the view of the winners. Yesterday facts become stories. Stories become fables or myths, only to be whispered in the darkest hours when thunder lights the skies, and people dare to remember what memory could not forget.

Humankind is a very young race, when compared to mine. We ruled the skies before the Gods – or God, if such is your faith – decided that there should be a separation between land and sea. Then came the dinosaurs, with their anger and ruthlessness, dominating the land, the sea and the air. Their final day came, and again the skies were ours again.

New species abounded and between them, a feeble creature appeared that slowly acted as a plague, multiplying and covering every stretch of land it could find. We silently watched them grow in numbers, and in power.

As they grew in numbers, the skies where we could fly free diminished. As they grew in power, legends and myths about us started to circulate between them.

We were ruthless creatures that should be feared and hunted and killed. Our power was to be conquered. Our scales were to be used as their trophies and our claws as pendants of their warriors.

Very few of these humans ever tried to understand us, so some of us made the choice of doing a feeble attempt of understand them. We searched our Elemental, the ruler of our existence, always fair and always just, and pleaded to be given the chance to interact with them, to understand this creature that so much harm had caused to the land, that bled with the marks of their acts against nature.

The Elemental informed that, once his decision was made, it could not be undone, and we should live with the consequences of our choice. We would be forever bound to our word of watching over these feeble creatures, forever and ever. We would also be vulnerable to the same passion that dominated them. The high council met, and they agreed that watching over their evolution would be an interesting task.

The Elemental sadly shook his head at their decision, and informed that there are always consequences, and we would be forever bound to the human form we took. As immortal creatures, the chance of experimenting the limitations and struggles of a mortal one seemed … fascinating… at first sight. So, the council agreed with the rules put forth by the Elemental.

And it was this decision that marked the end of the rule of the dragons, and started the rule of men in the world.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"Martha, can you come here for a moment?" a screech is heard coming from the back of the hall.

I stand up, and look towards my boss in the library. As a hunted creature, with a price over my head, I value very much my ability to blend in, and not to be noticed between the hordes of humans that daily enter this gathering place. I put the books I was ordering on the small book cart back, and walk towards my boss, who is staring at the history section shelves with a frown.

She turns to me, and glares with those light blue eyes, that remind me of eyes of those soulless dolls they sell on the handcraft market on Sunday mornings close to my apartment.

"What is this?" She points to a half eaten sandwich, stuffed between two thick volumes of the Encyclopedia of Quotations by Winston Churchill.

I blink, trying to separate what she wants to hear from what I should not say.

"Are you blind?" Doreen Travis asks again, snarling at her employee, who was looking at the trash as if her mind couldn't come up with a name for it, "Are you stupid as well, that you can't tell me what this is?"

Hazel eyes with green spots on it, with iris that sent a chill up Doreen's spine, turn to her, and a soft voice answered, with no inflexion. "It's a sandwich, Mrs. Travis," says Martha calmly.

Doreen snarls at me, "I know it's a sandwich, I'm not blind, I can see it. What I want to know is why it's stuffed between my history books!"

I breathe deeply, and do not answer. I know that one wrong answer would get me fired, as were the three previous librarians working in the neighborhood library. None of the previous employees had been able to endure the harassment and humiliation as I had been so far.

_Ah, how far one can go if your life depends on it.  
_  
"I'll clean it immediately, Mrs. Travis."

Mrs. Travis glares at her employee, and leaves with hard steps that resound in the wooden historical floor.

I sigh, and support my hand against the shelf and take deep breaths, trying to resist my initial instinct of changing and roaring my anger at my boss. I smile a little at the image in my head, as I imagine Doreen terrified of my alter form roaring and releasing fire enough to burn her to crisps.

"Control yourself, Kismet," I mutter under my breath, and silently start collecting the dirt the small and not so small children leave in between the books during their visits.

I gather everything in a plastic bag, and walk to the back of the library, and throw it on the garbage bin. I shiver in the light wind, and look up, and for a moment I allow myself to think of Dory.

I feel my shivering intensify, and I can not help a small tear from running down my face. The news of her death hit me hard, but I could not let my despair show to the two agents who visited me earlier today. I could also not let them find out that it was because of me that she had been hunted down and killed.

I lean down over myself, and feel anguish hit my chest as a hammer, for a moment hating what I am and who I am, as my existence brings only pain and suffering to those who dare get close enough.

I close my eyes, and tune into the simmering power laying dormant in me, and my nostrils are invaded with a sweet scent that is at the same time erotic and enticing, which permeates my skin and my body, regardless of how many different perfumes I use on my body and how many times I wash myself to get rid of it.

I struggle each day against my nature, and keep people every single day as separated as possible of me, and still, an innocent human paid the price of the war of my species.

She touched me.

I had lost balance while putting some books in an upper shelf, and fell to the floor in a heap. She ran, and in her efforts to help me up, touched a part of my skin that, despite of my efforts, was not covered by my thick pullover.

Just a touch, and she had been condemned to death for it.

My scent had transferred to her skin, and the hunters found her, as I feared it would happen. I begged her to be careful, but she did not heed my warnings.

Now I have another innocent's blood in my hands.

The Red hunters are closing in.

This place is not safe anymore.

It is time to leave and seek another name, another persona.

Martha Simmons must disappear.


	5. Death comes knocking again

_**Chapter 4: Death comes knocking again  
**_  
The following morning, Gibbs walks with Tony and McGee on his side towards Ziva who is standing over the body in the woods.

"What have you got?"

Ziva points to the broken body of a teenager, his arms and legs in the same odd angles of their victim the previous day.

"His parents complained that he failed to come for dinner on the base, and ordered a base wide search. The search dogs found him this morning only."

Gibbs dons his gloves, and moves the foliage away from the boys face. It's just a little kid, with thick glasses and a terrified expression on his face.

"McGee, pictures, DiNozzo, sketch, Ziva, you with me." He starts walking away, toward the search and rescue party who is standing a few yards away.

"Something wicked this way comes," says Tony, looking at the crime scene and starting to sketch it.

McGee starts taking pictures, from the body position, its hands and then turns it to the boy's face. He freezes, then lowers the camera.

"Tony."

Tony bites his pencil, "have you ever felt a chill on your spine, as if there is someone walking over your grave this very moment? I just had one. It's like when I watched the first Freddy Krueger movie. I had nightmares for a week."

"Tony."

"The sequels were quite good, but I hated the one where they put him against the masked guy from Halloween series. These guys in Hollywood just have no imagination."

"TONY" shouts McGee, exasperated.

"What?"

McGee points to the boy, and whispers, "I know him."

"You know him? How?" he approaches the body, and looks at the face of the dead boy.

"From the library, yesterday." Tony shakes his head, then looks at McGee.

"He's the boy that librarian helped out, away from the bully."

Tony looks again at the dead boy.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

They inform Gibbs of their suspicion and Gibbs, after a superficial search on the boys trousers, finds a library card on the front pocket.

He immediately orders them to the library to collect the librarian for interrogation.

One dead body is random at its best.

Two dead bodies is not coincidence.

They walk in hurried steps into the library, and nod to Mrs. Travis, who is sitting behind the main counter.

"Where is Martha Simmons?"

"Back in the Politics. May I help—"

They simply leave her talking and rush towards the direction she pointed. They walk through two doors and climb to the second floor, where the Politics section is. The room is empty, only Martha is there separating books.

"Ms. Simmons, we would like to talk to you." She looks up from the book she is skimming through, and glances at them.

They see her fear, and start running towards her as soon as she bolts towards the emergency stairs in the back.

She slams her shoulder on the fire door, and starts running upstairs, the agents hot in her heels.

"MS. SIMMONS."

She keeps running upstairs, not glancing back.

McGee takes the stairs two at a time, Tony hot on his heels, and he's just some steps behind her when she reaches the roof.

He sees her running to the edge and tackles her to the floor, before she jumps and commits suicide.

She fights desperately him, her tall frame no match to his bigger size.

"Let me go." She hisses at McGee, who succeeds in grabbing her arms and holding it up over her head.

"You're coming with us," says Tony out of breath, grabbing his cuffs and offering them to McGee, who promptly cuffs the fighting librarian.

"We have some questions to you."

He helps her up, and she shakes her head, terrified.

"You have to let me go, it's not safe." She says, staring at something behind them.

McGee frowns, and turns to look behind him. There's nothing there. Yet, for some reason, he feels goose bumps on his arms, and a chill running up his spine. It's almost as if a malevolent presence is watching them, watching her.

"Of course it's not safe, if people are dying right after they come talk to you." He grabs her by her arm, and starts leading her toward the stairs.

"You don't understand, it's not safe." She repeats, looking around scared.

"Sure, I believe you." He takes her to the door, and takes her down.

McGee stays behind for a second and looks around for a second, but he doesn't see any sign of danger that might explain the feeling of dread he had, so he follows Tony down the stairs.

As soon as the door to the stairs slams shut, there is a whisper of wind on the roof. There is the noise of a heavy weight landing on the cement floor and in a trick of light something shimmers into existence. A demonic creature with red eyes smells the air, its nose catching the scent of its prey. It smiles, baring its fangs tinted with blood of its previous victims.

_I found her_, it whispers in the mental link to the others of its species. The stakes of the game just went up.

* * *

a/n: Reviews, please? Be nice and write what you think so far.


	6. Interruptions on Gibbs' interrogation

**_Chapter 05: Interruptions on Gibbs' interrogation_**

Back in NCIS, they left her simmering in the interrogation room while the agents did a background check on her name. They weren't really surprised to find out that the real Martha Simmons was an octogenarian who lived in a mental Asylum in South Carolina. Her fingerprints also were a mystery, as they could find nothing on her.

Absolutely no hits. Almost as if she had never existed, her presence in the interrogation room defying all laws.

Gibbs enters the interrogation room, and sits down on the chair.

"Who are you?"

She simply glances at him, no answer.

"I don't know what kind of game you are playing, but you'd better start answering my questions."

"You have no idea what you are dealing with, let me go."

"No, can't do. I have a navy lieutenant and a little boy dead, and in both cases, they were seen speaking to you. So you better start telling me what is this about."

She looks away, staring at the wall, refusing to answer his questions.

"You are in a lot of trouble, and I would like to help you, but only if you help yourself."

More silence.

Gibbs opens the folder in his hand, and starts putting on the table the pictures of the dead lieutenant and of the dead little boy. He sees her glancing at them, her chin trembling, and her eyes filling with tears, but then she looks again to the wall of the interrogation room and keeps stubbornly silent.

"Care to explain these to me."

"Let me go."

"I can't do it."

"You have to let me go." She says, her voice quivering with tears. She looks at him pleading at him with her eyes.

"It's not safe." She says, almost in a whisper, staring into his eyes.

Gibbs stares at her, and for some reason his gut tells him that she might not be the killer, but she knows who is. And she's terrified about it.

"Why were they killed?"

She glances at the pictures, and for a moment he sees a mask of pure despair on the young woman, but all emotion is gone in a flash, leaving only placid eyes that go back to stare the wall.

"You have to help me here. Otherwise I'll arrest you for accessory for murder."

"You can't speak like that to my client," says Allison Hart, lawyer from Hell, entering the interrogation room, followed by another man in a sharp suit.

"What gives you the right to burst into my interrogation?" asks Gibbs, annoyed.

He looks at the suit, and immediately he goes on alert, as the man is smiling an evil smile to his suspect. Up until now, she had been almost placid, trying not to answer his questions.

Now, however, she had a panicked face and was literally trying to slide further away from this stranger in his interrogation room.

"When Mr. Evans," Allison points to the suit, "here kindly informed me how your agents basically abducted his cousin from her work this morning, without proof of her involvement with the murders, I had to interfere."

"You had to interfere," growls Gibbs, standing up to stare at the lawyer, "two people are dead and you are worried with this? I have a murderer to catch, and she" he points to the woman sitting on his interrogation desk, "knows who he is."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

In the observation room, Tony, Ziva and McGee are observing the interrogation, and all three wince when Allison blunders her way into the interrogation room.

"He's going to kill her."

"Probably strangle her, then cut her body into pieces, and burn the body parts," suggests Ziva.

However, McGee is frowning at the interplay between the suspect and the stranger who was standing by the door. He sees the cruel smile on his face, and the barely concealed fear on the woman's face.

"Something is wrong."

"What do you mean, of course something is wrong, the lawyer from hell broke Gibbs' golden rule: _Never interrupt his interrogation_."

"Not that Tony. Look!" he points to the interrogation, and they see the woman staring terrified at the suit, and she visibly flinches when he leans his head to the side, as if studying a bug.

"He's not her cousin, that's for sure." Ziva squints at the interaction, and sees the woman go pale, and then shudder as if she received a slap. The man in the suit, Mr. Evans, has yet to say a world, just smiling down at her as if she's a piece of meat. He raises his hand, as if to touch her shoulder, and she keeps staring at him, terrified.

* * *

a/n: I wonder who is the mysterious Mr. Evans. Reviews, please, again I beg you.


	7. Old enemies

_**Chapter 6: Old enemies  
**_  
_"Hello, Kismet, what a nice surprise to find you hiding in plain sight, here in DC,"_ says Terran, male Alpha from the Red warriors, through the mind link of their race. He's enjoying the terror he can smell from the female.

_"What do you want, Terran? Aren't the lives you butchered not enough?" _says Kismet, also through their mind link.

_"What do I want? I want the elusive Alpha Green female as my mate, as I found her first and through the laws of our people, you belong to me now, dear Kismet."  
_  
He smiles a toothy grin, and she shudders as the perspective of submitting to him is disgusting. She had evaded the attempts of kidnapping and rape for centuries of several Alphas, from different clans, and just for a false step, she had been found by the leader of the Reds.

_"Over my dead body,"_ she hisses to him, despite her fear for her life and for the fragile humans in the room with her.

_"No, can't do. I need you alive and breeding my offspring, so I can add your magic to my own line and we can rule over more clans. You'll be my queen, and I'll treat you kindly, as long as you submit to me."  
_  
She blinks, as she imagines the horror the Reds, one of the most violent clans in existence, could do if they had her magic introduced to their bloodlines.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The Elementals, once they granted the wish to the Immortal beings to walk and dwell among men, did not warn the council that the immortals would be infected by the same greed and anger their human counterparts had to deal.

So, several branches of dragons had become greedy for power and a bloody war began, almost destroying the dragons from within.

Whole families were executed, their males killed, their females raped and tortured to bring offspring to the more powerful ones. If the offspring was not born with the magical power the rapist sought, it was summarily executed. The magical creatures with the gifts more sought after, foresight and elements control, were hunted and subjugated in the war.

The females who had escaped such fate simply lived in fear, hiding, afraid of being found and brought back to war that they didn't start, but were the biggest victims.

The females living under the rule of terror of their mates, simply did their best to protect their offspring and, if there was the danger of the hatchling being executed, she organized a quick escape for it.

That was what happened for Kismet, not because she did not have the power, but because she had too much of it. Her mother, a previous Green Alpha, had as her mate a Golden Alpha.

Her natural premonitions gifts were strong, and her Golden cheered when the midwife informed that the hatchling already exhibited great power, even while still in the womb. He bartered the child as highly pricy merchandise, offering her as mate in exchange of alliances with more powerful clan, the Reds. Her mother, though, did not agree with the fate her daughter would have in the hands of the cruelest creatures ever to walk on land, the son of the Red Alpha, and arranged for the midwife to take the child with her, and substitute it for with a dead infant.

The Golden roared as he was told his golden egg was born dead. He struck the mother and killed her, while she was still weak from the birth. He ordered the midwife executed as well, but the orders were followed just after she had left the innocent child in the grounds of a Benedictine church.

She carried her secret to the grave, and only centuries later there were rumors of a new Green Alpha alive, living among the mortals. During centuries the different clans sought her out, but she had always escaped them.

That is, until now.

* * *

a/n: The plot thickens. Now the real battle starts. Reviews! Please!


	8. Blood sacrifice

_**Chapter 7: **__**Blood sacrifice  
**_  
Kismet glances at the two humans, still arguing in the room, and wonders if she can hatch an escape plan without revealing herself to them. She senses the grim determination on Terran's mind, and he slowly advances to make his claim. She prepares to his mental attack, and tenses herself to the pain she knows will come with his touch.

"DON'T YOU DARE TOUCH HER," shouts the light haired man who arrested her earlier today, as soon as he opened the door.

"McGee, are you out of your mind?" asks Gibbs, staring at his junior agent.

Tony and Ziva approach Tim, and give him silent support, and watch the man staring at McGee as if he was a little bug.

The man smiles thinly, and turns to the woman, who is looking at McGee with astonished eyes, barely breathing.

"What is the meaning of this? You'd better control your agents, Agent Gibbs, or I will report you to the Director," says Allison.

"Boss," says McGee, pointing to the man, "if he's really her cousin, why is she more afraid of him than of us?"

Gibbs looks at the woman, and indeed, she's barely controlling her panic, but she's staring at the man of the suit.

Mr. Evans exchanges a glance with the senior agent, and Gibbs can clearly feel the malevolence of the man standing before him.

"How sweet, you have a protector." He says with an ironic smile.

What happened next, only after the team had the chance to review the surveillance cameras they would fully understand. One moment Evan was standing only two feet from Martha, the following second he had McGee by his throat and had a blade, a very ornate one, on his hand, coming down to end McGee's life.

Gibbs, Tony and Ziva barely had time to react, and McGee's eyes just widened at the shine of the blade.

However, a millisecond before the knife hits McGee's chest, there's a wind and the blade sinks on Martha's back, who suddenly appeared between McGee and his attacker, as if she had materialized out of thin air. She gasps, as the blade had gone through her lung, and McGee looks horrified at her hazel eyes, as she blinks trying to clear her sight.

"You idiot! How can you protect the mortals!" the man shouts, as he notices what she has done. Ziva and Tony jump him, trying to hold him down while he roars his fury.

McGee's arms automatically go to her waist and bring her against his chest, as her legs fold and he brings her slowly to the floor, careful of the blade still stuck to her back. She starts wheezing, and blood starts bubbling out of her mouth.

Gibbs dials Ducky on his cell phone, and shouts for him to rush to interrogation. Allison is horrified at the scene, and notices the increasing blood splatter on the floor right under the dripping knife, hanging out of the woman's back.

McGee's eyes starts to water, as he feels her shaking in his arms, trying vainly to bring air to her damaged lungs. She opens and closes her mouth trying to say something.

"Don't speak, we called the paramedics, you're going to be fine," he says in a shaky voice, feeling her shuddering increase.

She shakes her head keeps trying to say something, and he leans down so he can hear her whisper.

"Draagoonn ssss commm—" she wheezes, and a tear runs down her face, from the corner of his eyes.

A roar is heard, and Tony and Ziva are flown back, Tony hitting the glass of the interrogation room, and Ziva hitting the wall with a thud. Both slide as broken dolls to the floor

"Tony! Ziva!" Gibbs runs to his nearest fallen agent, Tony. He checks his vitals and he feels a faint pulse. He's alive and dazed, but hurt.

There is a hiss, and where the man once stood a cloud forms, growing in size and filling the room. Suddenly a roar shakes the room, and the cloud recedes, leaving only a small creature with leathery dark red skin and wings on its place.

"What the hell is –" Gibbs is interrupted by a another roar, and the red creature opens its wings and jumps towards his face, its claws out ready to rip out his eyes from his face.

He lifts his arms to defend himself, but before it reaches him, there is another roar, and a green shadow attacks it, rolling on the floor as a hissing mass, hitting Allison as a bowling ball and tackling the lawyer to the floor. Allison crawls away from the growling bodies on the corner and there are burst of fire, smoke and sulfur, filling the interrogation room with its characteristic smell.

Gibbs looks at McGee, and he's looking with wide eyes to the growling beings on the corner.

His shirt is splattered with blood, but the bleeding woman is nowhere to be seen.

Gibbs looks again to the corner, and he sees the red creature throwing the green creature against the wall. As it becomes dizzy, the red creature opens its leathery wings, and flies towards the open door that leads to the corridor.

The green hisses, opens its wings, and flies in pursuit.

"I must have hit my head harder than I thought," says Tony staring at the direction the beings flew, "but did I just see not one, but two dragons?"

Gibbs stands up, and grabs Tony's hand and helps him to stand up. He looks at McGee, who still has a shell shocked look on his face.

"McGee."

No answer.

"McGee!" Gibbs shouts, and he finally sees some reaction from his younger agent.

"Boss, she has… she is… how…"

Gibbs runs to Ziva, and helps her up, "let's go, we have to stop them before they kill each other, or someone else."

* * *

a/n: Now they will show their real colors (pun intended). I hope you guys keep track on who or what is which color. That's important.

Reviews, please?


	9. Battlefield: Bullpen

**_Chapter 8: Battlefield: Bullpen_**

The agents run towards the bullpen, following the smell the sulphur and the screams of terror.

The scene they find is something they could never have imagined to see in the boring bullpen in NCIS.

Apparently, the two beings, once they were in more unrestricted space, had magically increased in size. Now, instead of two small creatures snarling at each other, there were two snarling creatures at least fifteen feet tall attacking each other over the limited space of the bullpen.

The agents working had scurried away, and now most of them are staring at the fight, some even had drawn their weapons, but were unsure which one of the beasts they should shoot.

One agent had pointed his gun with shaking hands and was ready to fire, when McGee saw it and ran to him.

"NO, don't shoot them. You might hit her."

The man looked at McGee as if he was crazy.

"Her? How can you even know one of those things is a she?"

McGee turns to look at the fight again, and winces when the red dragon claws the chest of the green one, who howls in pain. In retaliation, it buttheads into the red one's chest, using the momentum to slam it against the most wanted wall, making several photos fall to the floor.

The red grabs a piece of glass and sinks it on the side of the green one, between the scales, who hurls in pain, takes a step back and falls to the floor. The red roars and jumps in the air, with another piece of glass in its claws, ready to finish the green off.

"NO!" Screams McGee, grabs the other agent's weapon and fires at the red dragon. It roars, and turns its red eyes to the human who dared interrupt its fight.

It leans its head to one side, and opens its mouth in a simulacrum of smile. It opens its wings and jumps in the air, towards the humans.

All the agents who had their weapons drawn start shooting the beast, who growls but keeps trying to fly towards them.

The agents stop, and the beast lands on the floor, a few feet away. It shakes its head, and laughs.

"You mortals should not meddle with affairs of dragons, as your flesh is crunchy and taste good with ketchup," it snarls in an almost human voice.

It prepares to attack again, but before the agents start shooting again it howls in pain, and freezes midflight. It looks down, and there is a metal spike, taken from under one of the tables, sticking out of its chest. It tries to move its wings, but it is stuck in the spike.

The Green Alpha was right behind it, and it twists the spike, invoking a roar of pain of the Red. With a swift slide of a piece of glass, its throat is cut, and the Red Alpha falls to the floor, dead.

"I prefer sushi, any day," Green Alpha says.

The Green breathes with difficulty, its limbs shaking with the strain of remaining upright.

Kismet looks up from the dead Terran, and sees the humans all pointing their weapons at her. She doesn't move a muscle, simply lets the glass fall from her hands, and slides to sit on her back legs on the floor like a piece of wet rags.

Most agents keep their guns pointed to the wheezing beast in the middle of the bullpen. Even the Director left MTAC and was leaning with several other agents on the rail of the second floor, looking down at the mess the fight created.

* * *

A/N: Reviews, please?


	10. Old alliances and vows awakened

_**Chapter 9: Old alliances and vows awakened**_

Ducky finally arrives at the bullpen, and he freezes when he sees what is there.

"Oh my goodness, Jethro, what has happened here?"

He glances at the beast bleeding dead at the floor, and the one bleeding and looking at the humans without twitching a muscle.

McGee slowly approaches the beast, and Tony hisses at him.

"Are you crazy, it can eat you!"

McGee smiles and shakes his head, lifting his arms in surrender, "no, she won't. If she wanted any of us dead, she would already have attacked us."

He takes another step, and puts his gun on a nearby table, "so," he looks at its chest, and the bleeding gash between its green scales, "that must hurt."

The green dragon blinks, first the outer lid, horizontal, then the inner lid, vertical, and fixes its stare at this puny human.

"We have doctors, we can help."

"Agent McGee," shouts the Director from upstairs.

"Be careful my lad, a wounded creature can be vicious," says Ducky.

The Green alpha lifts its head, and leans it to the side, as it hears Ducky's voice.

"You are Scot," it says.

As it speaks, several agents start to murmur, and Nikki Jardine can't help her surprised exclamation.

"You speak!" she says, fascinated.

The dragon looks at the woman for a moment with its yellow eyes, and Jardine shrinks in fear, "and you smell like disinfectant, but I do not keep telling that to others as if that's a big deal," retorts the dragon.

Jardine blushes under her tan, and several agents snicker. Even Gibbs cracks a small smile, and he sees the dragon looking again at Ducky.

"You are Scot," the Green Alpha repeats.

Ducky takes a step forward, "Yes I am, born and bred in Edinburgh."

The dragon leans its head to the other side, "to which clan do you swear allegiance?"

Ducky frowns at that, "well, my name is Mallard, and my father was from the lowlands but my mother, Victoria, came from the McPhee clan."

The dragon closed its eyes, and starts reciting, "Victoria McPhee, daughter of Gloria and Thomas McPhee. Thomas parents' were Margareth and James McPhee. James's parents were Barbara and Northon McPhee, whose parents were Mary and Connor McPhee."

Ducky's awed that the beast can recite his genealogy, as he only knew some of the names mentioned.

"How do you know that?"

The dragon opens its eyes, and stares with yellow eyes at the Scot, "Scots and dragons were allies, several eras back. Your forefathers swore to protect our secrets. In exchange of that, we would protect their land from invasions and their future generations from harm."

It shrugs lightly, "and your scent is similar to your forefather Connor. He also was a healer within his clan."

Ducky moves the agents out of his way, and gets closer to McGee, who is only some feet away from the Green Alpha.

"Maybe we could offer some assistant, as I'm a doctor, and that must be taken care of." He points to the glass shard still imbedded in the skin.

The dragon shakes its head, "my concern is not about the dragon. The dragon will heal. My human needs a healer's attention."

It leans its head to the side, studying Ducky, "in accordance to the vows of the old, McPhees were sworn to offer shelter to any dragon who sought assistance. Would you offer refuge to my human, healing to her wounds and protection of those who seek her harm? It would be temporary, only until my wounds are healed enough so I can protect her again."

"What's the catch?" asks the Director, approaching the agents closer to the bleeding beast.  
Gibbs stares at Vance, who is adamant, "these types of contracts, there is always a catch. Always some fine print that it's not mentioned when it's sealed."

The dragon sighs, as its strength is slowly seeping away. "I'll be stuck into human form until I heal, ok? Therefore, vulnerable. So, will you help me or not?"

"We will," says McGee. Vance looks at McGee, irritated.

"You have no authority to decide that."

McGee turns to Vance, "but she's hurt! And her human got hurt trying to save my life."

"Either way we'll have to think –"

"Guys…" the dragon blinks and stumbles.

"Careful there!" McGee rushes to the dragon, but he's too late and the dragon simply slides to the floor unconscious.

"Give me space, give me space," shouts Ducky as people rush to see the dragon closer, and touch the scales. The red blood is slowly sipping of several wounds. The claw marks and the glass shard seemed the most serious ones.

Gibbs looks at all curious agents, and whistles, "ok, everybody back to work, step back and let Ducky work here."

The curious hordes slowly drifted, as Ducky examined the dragon.

"We still have to decide what to do with it," says the Director, looking at Ducky.

"What do you mean? We'll help her," says McGee, frustrated at the Director's inability of seeing the small miracle they had before them.

"Watch your tone, Agent McGee. We're still in my agency, and I have to decide if this is a matter of national security or not."

"You can't possibly think that she's a threat, she was only defending herself."

"And in order to do that, it killed another of its own kind in cold blood. And it seems to have the strength to kill any of my men with just a flick of her wrist. Until I decide it's not a threat to the security of my agency and my agents, I want this thing under watch twenty four hours a day."

Vance steps up to McGee and says to his face, "Have we reached an understanding, Agent McGee?"

McGee stares at Vance, and sees that he's resolute on his decision, "yes, Director."

"Good," he looks at agent Gibbs, who had been watching the interaction, "have this thing moved out of my bullpen and have security guards on it."

He leaves, letting the agents around the fallen dragon.

McGee goes to Ducky and sees him covering the bleeding wounds with a small cloth, and Jimmy trying to stop the bleeding in the other side.

"How bad is she, Ducky?"

"I'm not a specialist in Dragon physiology, but if the bleeding of these wounds is any indication, it's bad. Really bad." He touches the scales on the neck, and feels the pulse underneath them. He's surprised to feel warmth, as he expected it, for some reason, to be cold blooded.

"We'll have to move her to autopsy, but I have no idea how to do it without worsening her wounds and if she will fit into the elevator."

Gibbs sees McGee softly caressing the horns on hers head, and frowns. McGee is acting almost as if he wasn't caught by surprise by her transformation.

"McGoo, you are digging this, aren't you?" asks Tony, looking at his teammate who is slowly touching the horns of the unconscious dragon.

"She saved my life, Tony." McGee says in a soft voice, without taking his eyes of the breathing dragon.

* * *

Ahhh, Timmy and the dragon, sounds like a fairy tale, doesn't it?


	11. Mythological Miracles

_**Chapter 10: Mythological Miracles  
**_  
Surprisingly, it was Jimmy who solved the problem of how to move the dragon. He was cleaning the wound where the glass shards were imbedded between the scales. He noticed a faint glimmering light coming from the inner part of the wound, through the glass.

He slowly took the shard of the wound, much to the chagrin of Ducky, who wanted to do it in a proper sterile environment.

Both Ducky and Jimmy were surprised when, as soon as the glass shard was taken out of the Dragon's wound, a light shone from inside the wound, and despite the heavy bleeding, it started to seal the flesh from inside out at an amazing speed.

Same thing started happening with the gashes on her chest, and as soon as all visible bleeding wounds were healed, the dragon shrunk in size, from its previous fifteen feet, from nuzzle to start of tail, to mere six feet, and of it a least three feet was its long tail. Its body shrunk to only three feet, and Ducky had to merely take the small dragon into his arms to take it to autopsy.

Once in the arms of the M.E., she curled up into a ball and her tail twisted around his arm, searching for comfort. She burrowed her head under his armpit, and he could feel the faint vibration of her purring against his chest.

Gibbs looks at the purring green ball in Ducky's arms, and smiles, "is this a dragon or a cat?"

Ducky smiles, and softly glides his hand on the back scales of the dragon, and she shudders and purrs louder.

"I don't think it's a cat, but I believe it's a baby."

Gibbs walks with Ducky to the elevator, followed by Jimmy, Ducky, Tony, Ziva and McGee.

"Why do you think that, Ducky?" Ziva is staring at the little dragon, still trying to wrap her mind around the killing beast she has seen in the bullpen, trying to connect that to the purring ball in his arms.

"Well, she reverted to this size immediately after her worst wounds in her dragon form were healed, so I have to assume that's the size she's comfortable in. Besides, purring is usually found in the infant of several species, in a primitive form of bonding with the caretaker."

McGee looks at the green scaly ball purring, "her human didn't seem a baby."

Tony and Ziva turn to stare at him, "well, she didn't, ok?"

The elevator doors open in the autopsy floor, and the agents walk out and give space so Ducky can go to his domain.

"Jimmy, can you please get some blankets in storage, the table will be cold for her."

Jimmy rushes out of the room. Ducky, gently deposits the little dragon on one of the autopsy tables. He has to maneuver her a little bit, as her tail, as soon as she felt the cold steel of the table, compressed Ducky's arm and refused to let go.

"Shush little one, I'd like to examine you." She stops purring, and lays wheezing on the table.

Jimmy arrives with the blankets and arranges them over the little dragon. Ducky lifts the little body, so Jimmy can cover the steel table with another under her as well, and they make a fine nest for her.

"Now little one, let me see this wing," Ducky touches gently the left leathery emerald wing, and feels the broken bones underneath. He silently asks for tape and gauze, puts the bones in place and tapes the small wing in place, around the small body. The little dragon never wakes up.

"Ducky, we still have to see what to do with the other one in the bullpen," says Tony, pointing to the doors.

"Ask for some marines to carry it here, I would like to study it, so I may better care for this one."

"You also have to check on her human," reminds McGee, his mind flashing back to her terrified hazel eyes as she stared at him, with a knife stuck to her back.

"I can't look at her human's wounds while she's in her dragon form. As soon as she changes, I'll care for them."

He turns to the agents, who are all looking at the creature snoring softly underneath the blankets.

"Go, I have much to do." Gibbs smirks at his friend, and leads his agents back to the bullpen.

Ducky sighs, and looks back at the small creature sleeping on his table. Jimmy approaches his side, and also stares fascinated at the living and breathing creature of legends before him.

"What do we do now, Dr. Mallard?"

"We witness the miracle of life in the form of a mythical creature right before our mortal eyes."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

The agents get back to the bullpen, and they are not surprised to see that the other agents were slowly cleaning the mess of the battle. Some agents from another team were collecting the pictures from their most wanted wall from the floor. Others were standing in vigil close to the dead dragon.

Gibbs gets closer to it, and he's not surprised to find Allison Hart staring at the dead dragon as if it was… well … a dead dragon.

He approaches her, and smirks at her shocked face.

"I bet you hadn't seen that coming when you were contacted by Mr. Evan's this morning, were you?"

She points to the beast at the floor, in the middle of the bullpen.

"His credentials were impeccable, he is a fellow lawyer in Indiana, I never… I never imagined that he was…"

"A murderous killer beast who would try in every possible way to kill my witness?"

Allison stares at Gibbs, and says exasperated, "I had no way of knowing he was in reality not a _he_, but a _it_, and a mythological killing psychopath."

"Next time," Gibbs gets closer to her, and says very close to her face, "try to find another way to piss me off, without putting my life and my team in danger in your power games."

They start a staring match, just being interrupted by Tony clearing his throat. Gibbs looks irritated at him, "what?"

"Boss," he points scared at the dead dragon. Gibbs and Allison look at it, and they see a faint glimmer under its skin.

"What do you think it could be?"

"I have no idea."

A cloud envelops its form, exactly as it happened in the interrogation room. It shimmers over its body, and when it collapses, they see the human dead body of Mr. Evans on the floor.

Tony is the first to break the shocked silence, "Well, now we can move him to autopsy without a hydraulic lift."

Gibbs turns to glare at him.

_"OUCH"  
_  
Gibbs smirks, "thanks Ziva."

"You're welcome, Gibbs."

* * *

a/n: According to a reviewer: Those are going to be a very interesting set of incident reports...


	12. Help from a sister agency

_**Chapter**__** 11: Help from a sister agency**_

"Scully, you got to see this."

Special Agent Dana Scully enters the basement office which she shares with Special Agent Fox Mulder and finds him watching something on the television. He is nervously biting into his sunflower seeds, eating the soft kern and spitting the shell, and his hazel eyes are shining excitedly at whatever new fake alien autopsy movie he found.

"If it's another one of those videos that aren't yours, I don't wanna know."

She goes to her own desk, and puts her lunch sandwich on the table, and throws Mulder's orders to him, and he catches his sandwich on the air.

He smiles at her, leaning his head back to look at her, and studies his partner of so many years. Her gorgeous red hair glimmers in the faint light of midday sun, and her baby blue eyes are looking at him with a faint smile. He puts the sandwich on the table, and turns to the TV again.

"Nahh, I've left those back home. Come here."

She approaches his desk, and frowns at the movie with elaborate CGI effects Mulder is watching. She sees two very fantastically detailed beasts fighting on the air in the bullpen of a company somewhere, and people staring at the fight with scared faces. Those people are really good actors, as she can almost taste the tension of the scene.

"A new blockbuster I haven't heard of?"

Mulder bites into another sunflower seed grinning, eats the soft kern and puts the empty shell on top of the others on the corner of his desk.

"Nope."

She glances at him, and she can feel his glee at his finding.

"A new CGI program Frohike is testing for a movie company?"

He shakes his head, his superior smile irking her a little.

"Nope."

She frowns as she glances from Mulder to the TV, as she sees the people on tape drawing weapons and shooting repeatedly the red beast on the screen, and after a few seconds, the green attacks the red one, killing it. The red beast drops to the floor, crushing the divisions and splattering office supplies and computers to the floor, while the green one simply stares at the half circle of people pointing guns at it.

"Ok, no more guessing games, what's that?"

Mulder stands up, and walks up to his partner. He stands behind her and puts his hands on her shoulders, and he takes great pleasure on feeling her faint shiver as he whispers on her ear.

"That's the security video of NCIS bullpen this morning."

She turns her head to look at his face, and she finds him staring fascinated at the TV.

"Come on, tell me the truth."

He turns to look at her, and he gulps when he finds her face so close to his.

"It's truth. I'm not messing with you."

He lets go of her shoulders, and approaches the TV.

"Byers used to go out with one of the girls on the secretarial pool, and he had told her of my…" Mulder bites his lower lip and makes quotation marks with his fingers, "… fascination of strange and weird things. This morning she called him saying that, believe or not, they had a dead dragon on the middle of their bullpen. Byers immediately asked if she could get any proof of what she was saying, and she arranged to have the tape delivered to him just one hour ago."

Scully shakes her head, unable to believe what she's seeing and hearing.

"That has to be fake. Dragons do not exist."

Mulder rolls his eyes at her skepticism. He had already expected that reaction from her anyway.

"If they did exist, and that's a very hypothetical argument, archeologists would have already found plenty of evidence to prove it. And there is no proof that such species ever existed."

"But Scully? What about the abundance of mythological figures identified as dragons throughout human history? Both East and Western myths and literature are filled with the presence of said reptilian creatures. Even the Bible mentions it."

She sighs frustrated.

"But they are metaphors, just archetypal representations of self and primitive behavior. Dragons are not real."

"But we have proof." He points to the video, where a tall blond man is speaking with the green beast.

"That's an elaborate hoax. I can't believe you would fall for such lie. That's just a very intense visual illusion created by someone who spent too many hours playing Dungeons & Dragons and with a very good eye for detail."

"Come on, Scully," whines Mulder, turning his back to Scully to watch the rest of the video.

"This is not fake, Scully. These are real people, in a real situation. That's our chance to see something only mentioned in fairy tales."

Scully sighs, and looks at the video again. Another person enters in the video angle, and she frowns. The man starts talking with the beast, and she takes another step towards the TV.

"Freeze it."

"What?" Mulder bites another sunflower seed, a nervous habit he acquired from his father.

"Freeze it, right there."

Mulder looks at Scully and he's surprised at the intense look on her face. He obeys her order.

"Now rewind it."

He glances to the TV, then at Scully, and fiddles with the remote control, rewinding the tape.

"Stop right there."

He studies Scully's frown, as she stares at the TV.

"Play it again."

He keeps glancing from the TV to Scully, seeing her gradually becoming pale.

"What's wrong?"

"Pause right there."

He glances at the TV, and he sees that it's the part where the dragon slides to the floor, and a man with a bow tie and glasses rushes to its side, and he's standing right beside it touching it as if trying to see how badly it was hurt.

"What's wrong?" he repeats his question.

Scully stares in silence at the TV for some moments, gathering her thoughts about the impossibility of what she's witnessing.

"I know that man."

Mulder glances at her, then at the bow tied man.

"That man?"

"Yeah."

"So…"

He waves the remote control in circles, trying to incite her to complete her sentence. She stares at the TV for some moments before answering in a soft surprised voice.

"That's Dr. Donald Mallard, he's the Medical Examiner from NCIS. I've met him during a forensics seminar on bone analysis at the Jeffersonian, promoted by Dr. Temperance Brennan two years ago."

She lifts astonished eyes to Mulder, who is looking at her with a big smile.

"So, wanna make a professional visit to Dr. Mallard?"

She shakes her head, astonished at his boyish enthusiasm at an impossible find. But then, he gets excited with any crazy thing that passes through their hands anyway.

"If that's CGI, you're buying me lunch."

"I always buy you lunch, Scully."

"For a month."

"Ah, come on."

"And do my paperwork."

"Scully!"

"Deal or no deal."

She folds her arms, staring at him unforgiving until he sighs, defeated.

"You drive a hard bargain."

* * *

a/n: New players enter the game...


	13. No Surprise

_**Chapter 12: No surprise**_

Gibbs was called to the Director's office to try to decide what to do with the situation in hands, and stayed there most of the morning in an emergency meeting with the Director and other senior agents.

From Team Gibbs, only Tony, McGee and Ziva were in the bullpen to clean up the mess. Ducky and Palmer were already working on the body of the dead dragon/human, and Abby was furiously processing the evidence from the bullpen and the interrogation room and also studying the videos from the attack.

Tony was trying to separate Gibbs' things in some cardboard boxes while Ziva was collecting her own things, preparing the area so the cleaning crew could come to start their job.

McGee was under one of the few undestroyed desks, unplugging the computer cables to move one of the only undestroyed computers out of the bullpen, when the elevator door dings and two people come out of it.

The tallest man had dark hair and an easy smile on his face, his hazel eyes looking around the destroyed bullpen barely containing his fascination with what was before his eyes. He was on the sharp suit in dark tones, which almost screamed federal agent. What did not match the severe image was the very bizarre necktie, which was printed in a very loud swirling design.

On his right side, stepping forward and talking to one of the agents closer to the door, is a woman with shoulder length auburn hair, with a very doll like face, baby blue eyes and a pink mouth with very soft cherry colored lipstick. After talking to the NCIS agent, who points to Team Gibbs, the two strangers cross the broken tables and chairs being piled on one corner so maintenance can take it away and approach DiNozzo, who looks at the two strangers with curiosity.

"Hi, may I help you?" DiNozzo wipes his dusty hands on his trousers, and frowns at them, mentally trying to place where he has seen them before.

"We're Special Agents Mulder and Scully from the FBI. We're looking for Agent Gibbs, we were told he would be here."

The red head immediately shows her FBI badge, looking at Tony in the eye and waiting for his inspection of her badge, while the dark haired man is looking around at the mess with excited eyes, almost bouncing with energy, as he shows his badge in a displicent way.

Tony looks at the man's badge, looks at her badge, then does a double take again at the man's badge as the name registers in his brain.

"You got to be kidding. Your mother named you Fox?"

Special Agent Fox Mulder, head of the X-files division of the FBI sighs, as he is tired of that silly joke.

"It was a family name, ok? Where can we find Agent Gibbs?"

Ziva drops the box she has on her hand on the floor, and approaches the agents speaking with Tony.

"He is unavailable right now. To what do we owe the honor of the FBI visiting us?"

Both agents who identified themselves as Mulder and Scully pocket their badges, and the taller one, Mulder, waves his hand, pointing to the mess.

"Was all this made by… you know, them?"

Ziva looks at Tony frowning, and immediately McGee goes on alert, as the Director had given orders to keep the incident a secret.

"Them… who?"

The man is almost bubbly with nervous energy.

"You know, the d-" he is interrupted by a painful jab on the ribs by his partner, who stares daggers at him. They exchange a meaningful gaze, saying thousand words without a sound then he nods, letting her take the lead.

"If Agent Gibbs is not available, is it possible to talk to Dr. Mallard? I'm also a fellow medical doctor and forensic medical examiner for the FBI, and I would be very happy to see him again, as we met some years back."

She looks placidly to the agents, who are looking at each other trying to decide what to do with these FBI agents.

"I'm sorry, but Ducky is also unavailable right now," says Tony, after exchanging a meaningful glance with Ziva.

"We kind of just had a biohazard problem and the morgue is under quarantine," Ziva lies with a placid smile on her face, without twitching a muscle.

Scully nods, as she had already expected such resistance from the NCIS agents. She and Mulder would have done the same thing if strangers came to their office and demanded to see evidence of one ongoing xfile.

"Then in this case," she opens her purse and gives one of her cards to Ziva, who was closest to her, "would you please inform Dr. Mallard that I dropped by? I'm a forensic examiner from the FBI, and we met during a forensics seminar at the Jeffersonian. I would like to have his professional opinion on a case of ours."

Tony nods at the two agents, "Ok, we'll tell him you came by."

The two FBI agents start to leave, when the blond man standing beside the two talkative agents seems to stumble, and has to support himself on the agent that dismissed them.

"Hey, Probie, you're ok?" Tony holds McGee by his shoulders, and wordlessly signs to Ziva to bring a chair to him.

"I don't know, I …" his eyes become glazed, as he's looking inside himself. Tony guides him bonelessly to the chair Ziva rolls to their side.

Scully takes a step forward, "I'm a doctor, may I be of any assistance?"

"No need, he's ok, right McGee?" says Tony harshly, eager to send the FBI agents packing.

"McGee, what's wrong?" Ziva takes his hand, and looks worried at his face, as he is zoned out.

"Call Ducky," orders Tony, and Ziva runs to one of the working phones carelessly thrown at the floor, and starts dialing autopsy. She frowns as it rings, and nobody picks it up at the other end.

"He's not there."

Tony looks up from the zoned out McGee to glare at Ziva, "What do you mean, he's not there. He has to be there." He rushes to her side and gets the phone from her hand, and hears only the phone ringing.

Scully approaches McGee, and touches his face, which is sweaty and cold, "he feels clammy."

Suddenly he blinks and stands up, almost throwing Scully to the floor. He looks scared at Tony and Ziva, who are staring at him as if he lost his mind.

"They're in trouble."

"They who?" asks Mulder, studying the blond agent with speculation his eyes.

McGee shakes his head, trying to clear his mind, "they are in trouble, they need our help."

"McGee, what's happening? You zoned out on us for a moment there." Ziva approaches her teammate, puts her hand on the fold of his arm and squeezes it, trying to grab his attention.

"Ziva, she's in danger," he says, his green eyes pleading at her to believe him.

She looks at the young agent, and she sees the seriousness in his eyes. McGee has never been one of those persons who cries bear (or maybe the idiom is someone who cries _dog_ or _wolf_, but who cares) and somehow, he is getting more anxious at each second that passes and they do nothing.

She nods, walks to her own destroyed desk, opens the first drawer with difficulty, grabbing her gun and badge. McGee, seeing her doing that, rushes to his own destroyed desk and gets also his gun and badge on the first drawer.

Tony looks at the two as if they had lost their minds. "What the hell you think you're doing?"  
Ziva glares at Tony, and looks at Tim, "Where?"

He closes his eyes for a moment, and mutters, "They're in autopsy."

Ziva nods and starts marching towards the elevators, McGee hot on her heels. Tony looks embarrassed at the two FBI agents, who look at him for guidance.

"Guys?" he rushes to his own desk, and gets his own gun and follows them.

"You stay here, ok? We'll be back in a minute." Tony says distractedly to the agents, and rushes running after his teammates.

Mulder and Scully look at each other for a moment, and run after them.

"What do you think it could be? That man should see a doctor."

Mulder watches the agents that, frustrated with the wait for the elevator, run to the stairs leading to the lower levels.

"Come on, Scully, didn't you recognize him from the video? He's the one who got closer to the dragon first."

"Mulder, how many times I have to tell you, dragons do not exist. I don't know how to explain the existence of that tape but that man should see a doctor, he felt sick to me."

Mulder rush after the agents, who are running down taking two steps at a time going down. He looks at Scully with excited eyes.

"In most of western mythology, if you saved a dragon's life, your life becomes linked to the life of the dragon. Basically, you could foresee dangers for it and it would foresee dangers to you."

Scully is struggling to keep up with Mulder and the agents, and sighs relieved when they seem to reach their destination, four floors down at some kind of sublevel, as the three agents run to a fire cutting door with the inscription Autopsy and open it, rushing to the corridor beyond it.

"That's just myth, not reality."

Mulder just smiles down at her, and wiggles his eyebrows. "You think?"

Both agents cross the threshold of the fire cutting door, and see the three agents frozen, staring at the scene before them with horrified eyes.

Unfortunately, the scene on the morgue wasn't very alien to Mulder and Scully.

* * *

a/n: So, yes, finally we get a glimpse on the bond between human and dragon... it will be explained later on...


	14. Do no harm

_**Chapter 13: Do no harm**_

"Mr. Palmer, would you kindly take these samples for Abby, please? I'll close him up."

Ducky doesn't even raise his eyes from the dead human/dragon's chest, before waving his assistant off.

"With pleasure, Dr. Mallard," says Jimmy, not without throwing a glance at the purring green ball on one of the desks of autopsy.

He gathers the evidence samples, the third batch they had collected, and hurries to bring it all to Abby, who has been working on the samples on her mass spectrometer since Ducky sent the first ones.

The doors to autopsy close after with a hiss, and Ducky starts talking with his guests, both living and dead. Ducky gathers a long black thread, and starts closing the chest of the late Mr. Evans, aka Red Killer Dragon, as Tony was calling him.

"You see, my dear. I'm puzzled with the mystery your race is. In my examination on your colleague here," Ducky points to the dead corpse he is stitching, "I've found absolutely no evidence of the fact that he is, or was, a dragon at all. If Jethro and Abby hadn't made me watch the tapes on the interrogation room and of the bullpen, I would have a hard time accepting that that beast and him were the same thing."

Ducky finishes stitching the chest, and covers the dead body with a white sheet. He walks to the wall, and stares at the X-rays.

"Besides a slight higher muscular mass, and a very low fat index, this man is in such perfect health that it is a pity he is dead. Of course, the slit throat and the spike you skewered him through in his dragon form apparently transferred from the dragon form to the human form, but there is nothing that, if this man simply had come to my table in any other circumstance, I would have seen as abnormal."

Ducky takes his splattered green scrubs and rips the gloves from his hands off, and throws them in the biohazard trash cans.

He approaches the purring ball, and smiles as at the miracle before his eyes. Every time it takes a deep breath, it frowns its forehead, and its delicate furry horns twitch lightly. And, exactly as a cat does while it is dreaming, its long tail would sometimes move, as if batting away something.

Ducky had moved the sleeping dragon from the autopsy table to a wooden one sitting against the wall, where he usually just puts some paperwork. It would keep the little dragon closer to him while he was working on the dead one. Ducky made a small nest with blankets around the wheezing thing. Once it burrowed in the warm blankets, it folded upon itself, and had not moved since.

"Aren't you a pretty little thing?" he says, as he runs one of his fingers on her twitching horns, and he feels a faint fur coming between the green scales. He runs his finger down the neck of the dragon, following its spine, and he's again surprised at the warmth he can feel coming from under the scales. They seem firm and strong, a protection for the soft skin underneath.

He had witnessed the miraculous and wondrous ability to heal of these creatures, and he wonders about the human form of the baby he has before him. That wound seemed pretty serious, and he is eager to treat her, but until she changes, there is nothing he can do.

Ducky smiles, and leans over to the sleeping beast, "so, you knew my great great grandfather? I wonder how different life had been back then, in the Highlands. I think believing in creatures such as you would be a fairly common thing back them, despite the efforts of the church to erase all pagan beliefs from the villagers."

The autopsy doors swish open again, and Ducky covers the dragon completely with the blanket, hiding it from view.

"Mr. Palmer, could you please assist me on putting Mr. Evans to rest?" He says without turning back, as he starts putting in order his autopsy tools.

"I'll gladly assist you," says a deep baritone voice, which definitely does not belong to Jimmy.

Ducky turns, and sees four men entering his autopsy, all in military uniform with impassive eyes, marching towards the corpse on the autopsy table. Right before them, studying the movement of the intruders, was a tall black man with a scowl on his face, dressed in combat gear.

"What's the meaning of this? What are you doing in my autopsy?" Ducky rushes to put himself between the invaders and the autopsy table, just to be pushed out of the way. He tries to break his fall holding on the corner of one table, but it turns and all autopsy tools fall to the floor with a loud noise.

"I suggest you offer no resistance, Dr. Mallard. We're here on National Security business, under orders of General Striker."

Ducky stares horrified as the four uniformed man carelessly put the corpse he just autopsied on a black back, move it to a stretcher, and starts moving it out of the autopsy.

"I received no info on that, you cannot rob a corpse from my table."

"It's not your table, Dr. Mallard," the black officer approaches Dr. Mallard, towering him at least one foot and using the advantage to intimidate the doctor, "it belongs to the government of United States, and I'm acting on its behalf. Now, I'm going to ask you only once: Where is the female?"

Ducky gulps staring at the tall military man, and his eyes unconsciously move towards the blanket pile on the wooden table.

The black man smiles an evil smile, and starts walking towards the table where the small dragon is. Ducky, however, runs to it and grabs the poor dragon with its blankets and holds it protectively on his arms, out of the evil military's reach now staring at him with scorn.

"I suggest you to hand me the creature down. I really don't want to fight with you for that."  
Ducky feels the dragon's tail twisting around his arm, its purring intensifying against his chest.

"I won't hand her over to you. She's not a lab rat for some experiment of yours. She asked my help and I won't deny it."

"You really want to create such a fuss over an aberration like it? I'm doing you a favor, taking it out of your hands. You really don't want to explain to your Director why you disobeyed the General's orders, do you?"

"I have received no such orders, and I have never heard of any General Striker. Until the Director himself comes down here and orders me to deliver her to you, I'll protect her."

The officer glares at the M.E., and looks at his men, "Go get it."

The military men starts advancing against Ducky, who walks slowly backwards until his back is against the freezer doors, holding the precious blanket against his chest.

"FREEZE, FEDERAL AGENTS!"

The men and the officer glare at the door of the autopsy, where three people are standing with their drawn weapons pointed to them.

Tony, Ziva and McGee enter slowly at the autopsy, their guns not wavering from the invaders.

"Put your hands on your heads, where we can see them. Any funny move we will shoot you."

The tall officer, turns to them and shows all his insignias and medals on his chest, but obeys the order.

"You have no idea what you're dealing with."

"Ah, I've heard that line before," snarls Tony at him.

"Ducky, are you ok?" shouts Ziva, pointing her gun to the black officer, who is looking at her with a snarl on his face.

"Thank God you're here, they took the other one."

McGee and Tony start walking in the direction where the four military are, just a couple of feet away from Ducky.

"Ducky, come over here, and let this trash over there." Tony is glaring at the military men, who had lifted their hands

Ducky starts to move away from the four men, and go towards McGee and Tony. However, one of the men looks at his commanding officer and receives a silent order to attack, and when Ducky passes beside him, he jumps him, grabbing the blanket out of Ducky's hands and pulling with all his strength.

Ducky screams horrified, as he feels the dragon's tail trying vainly to hold on to his arm, but finally its strength fails, and the blanket and the baby dragon goes flying out of Ducky's arms onto the autopsy floor, causing a scramble of hands trying to get it mid flight.

In the confusion, Mulder and Scully watch from the doors of the autopsy when a blanket with something green flies out of a middle aged man's arms, which they recognize as Dr. Mallard, and watch the military men drawing their weapons and pointing to the NCIS agents.

The black man in an officer uniform tries to get the green thing in the air, but it flies out of his reach and lands on the floor with a yelp, the blanket falling to its side and revealing a small reptilian creature between its folds.

The baby dragon, as soon as lands ungracefully on the floor, screeches in a loud scream, in such a high decibels that everything made out of glass breaks inside the autopsy, and the humans have to cover their ears to protect themselves of the noise.

Finally, the dragon stops screeching and its skin starts shimmering right before the astonished eyes of the FBI agents, NCIS agents and military, creating a small cloud of green mist over the small creature.

Finally, the mist collapses into itself, and instead of a small reptilian creature, they see a woman laying on the floor on her belly. A huge knife is stuck to her back, the wound a very deep one and the blood had ran out of the wound and pooled on her pullover.

Scully immediately rushes to her side, and starts checking her vitals. Her heartbeat is faint, but it is there, but the woman's eyes are fluttering and her lips are becoming slightly purple, a clear sign of lack of oxygenation.

"Step away from that abomination."

"This woman needs medical attention," says Scully, immediately dialing 911.

"This is not a human, it's an aberration," says the officer, and starts stalking towards Scully to push her out of the way and away from the bleeding woman, but Mulder stands up and runs interference, his gun pointed at the officer.

"She's not an aberration, and she will die if you don't step down your mighty pedestal and start acting with a little bit of mercy."

Scully gets incensed, and stands up and glares at the self conceited prick, "I took an oath when I became a doctor, DO NO HARM, and you won't stop me of rendering aid to her." Then she kneels again beside the bleeding woman.

The officer stares at the interfering agents, then at the gun pointed to his chest, "you better get out of my way, or you won't be able to hold a gun ever again."

"Really?" Mulder takes a step forward, facing the officer with contempt, "you and what army? You only want to use her like a lab rat, you reduce creatures like her to mere things to be dissected and studied. She's in pain, are you so blind with your arrogance that you can't see that?"

Ducky rushes to Scully's side, nods to her and starts to prepare the bleeding woman for moving her from the floor. The woman is faintly crying, her breathing coming in short gasps. One of her hands was hitting repeatedly on the floor with an open palm, trying to show the level of pain that must be excruciating.

McGee, Tony and Ziva keep a standoff with the four soldiers, all pointing their guns at each other.

"Lower your weapons," orders Tony, but one of the soldiers, the one who had pulled the blanket out of Ducky's hands smile and shakes his head.

"No way. You want my weapon, you come and get it."

Tony growls, but Ziva stops him before he does anything stupid.

"Ignore him, he's just a vase head."

McGee smiles at his teammate, "Jarhead, Ziva, the term is Jarhead."

"What the hell is happening here?" shouts Gibbs, as soon as he enters the autopsy with Director Vance beside him. They look at the standoff, the military men pointing guns to his team. The tall stranger with his gun pointed to a tall black man, the medals on his uniform screaming high officer, and Ducky with a red head attending to the bleeding woman on the floor.

"Who are you and what gave you the right of invading my agency, threatening my agents and putting in risk the security of my lab?" shouts Vance this time, staring at the military man, who stands straighter.

"I have the orders to retrieve the creatures and move them to a secure location, Sir," says the pompous ass, and Mulder sneers at him, incredulous.

"Sure, and you will keep her in a nice jail while you poke and prod her until she dies, that is, if she arrives alive at your final destination."

He turns to the gray haired man and the well dressed black man, who Mulder can only guess must be the Director of NCIS, "You believe the nerve of this man, he threatens your men, attacks your M.E. and still thinks that you are going to believe him."

Vance squints at the man, and doesn't recognize him, "who are you?"

"I'm Special Agent Fox Mulder and this is my partner, Special Agent Dana Scully, we're from a FBI division named X-files, specialized in paranormal or supernatural phenomena."

Gibbs frowns at that, "I can't believe the FBI would dedicate a whole division for that."

"Well, we—"

"MULDER, SHUT UP AND HELP ME!" shouts Scully, struggling with Ducky to move the bleeding woman from the floor.

He looks from Gibbs to Scully, rushes to her side, and helps hold the woman while Ducky and Scully lift her from the floor to one of the autopsy tables. Ducky carefully wipes the tears from her face, and he feels her shaking in pain. Mulder looks fascinated at her face, and she blinks as his face flutters before her eyes.

"You know, I believe in many strange things, but I've always believed in your kind before." He says softly staring in her hazel eyes.

"How touching, you like the freak," snarls the officer, taking a step closer to the table.

Mulder points his gun at the officer, "Stay away from her."

"Someone, please go upstairs to bring the paramedics here," says Scully, keeping her hands on the woman's back, keeping her immobilized to not further her injuries.

Gibbs looks at Vance, who nods and gets his mobile phone, calling the gates to verify the arrival of the ambulance.

Gibbs gets closer to Ducky and the red head, "How is she?"

The red head looks at Gibbs, and he is surprised at the bright intense blue eyes staring at him, "She's dying."

McGee's eyes waver from the soldier he is pointing his gun to the bleeding woman on the table, and for a moment their eyes lock. He sees the pain in them, and he gulps when they change from hazel to yellow.

"Let her die!"

The tall black officer jumps at Mulder, who drops his gun and is tackled to the floor with a thud.

Two soldiers fire their weapons against the NCIS agents, who instinctively answer back with fire. However, they are surprised as the bullets fly out of their weapons and simply freeze, floating on the air. The soldiers keep firing their weapons, but all bullets keep freezing mid flight. They look around, and see that the woman on the table has her hand stretched, her face in mask of pain, as if she is using all her strength to stop the trajectory of the bullets.

She lets her arm fall down, and all the bullets fall to the floor, pinging uselessly. The soldiers look at the agents then at the abomination, who with a simple flick of her wrist throw them against the wall, rendering them all unconscious.

The officer punches Mulder, whose head hits the floor with a thud, and rushes to Mulder's weapon and stands up, pointing to the creature to finish it off.

A shot is heard in the autopsy, and everyone flinches. They are surprised however, then the black officer shudders and falls to the floor, a bullet hole perfectly on his forehead.

They look around, and see that, between the NCIS agents, it was McGee who had his gun up and pointing to the dead officer. He lowers his gun, and rushes to Ducky's side, and grabs the bleeding woman's hand.

"Hey, you're going to be ok." He looks at the knife protruding from her back, and glances at the red head woman, who sadly shakes her head.

"She's getting weaker by the minute."

Mulder stands up dazedly, looks at the dead officer and rushes to Scully's side.

"Is she…?"

Scully glances at him and shakes her head, "she won't survive the transfer to the hospital."

Mulder looks at Gibbs and the Director, "Where are the paramedics?"

Vance has his phone on his ear, looking at the tragedy happening before his eyes, "they are on the bullpen, security will bring them here."

McGee squeezes her hand in his, "don't give up on me, you're going to be fine," he says, his voice quivering, but she shakes her head, blinking the tears out of her eyes.

"Last… one." She whispers out of breath.

Mulder stands beside the blond NCIS agent who is almost in tears, and looks at the wounded woman.

"You are the last one?" Mulder feels his heart constrict in despair, so close to find something extraordinary, just to witness its death.

She turns hazel eyes to Mulder, and nods faintly.

"Last Alpha…" a lone tear slips from the corner of her eyes, "my magic… dies… with me."

She sighs, and stops breathing at the exact moment that the paramedic rush into autopsy, and Ducky directs them to the autopsy table.

The paramedics immediately start working on her, and Mulder holds the shoulders of the blond NCIS agent as they struggle to revive her.

* * *

a/n: Uhm... who is the General Stryker?


	15. Medical chart

_**Chapter 14**__**: Medical chart  
**_  
A woman, age undetermined, was brought to the accident and emergency department after being stabbed in the back. The knife had been left _in situ_. She was transported by MedEvac and accompanied by two doctors who provided her background. On arrival her pulse rate was 102/min blood pressure 112/45 mmHg and respiration rate 12/min. She had to be resuscitated twice while still on route.

Air entry to the lungs was unequal and oxygen saturation was 50% with the patient on oxygen 11 L/min. An ornate-knife handle was protruding from the right posterior thoracic wall in the paravertebral region at the level of T4. There was said to have been intense blood loss at the scene of the injury.

Primary and secondary surveys, performed with the patient sitting, identified bruising on hands, legs and torso, probably resultant of a fight, which support the fight hypothesis mentioned by the two doctors who brought her in.

During her initial assessment she was given 500 mL crystalloid, 1200 mg cefuroxime, 3 mg morphine and 10 mg metaclopramide intravenously. The heart rate fell to 95/min and all other indices remained stable. Chest X-rays were taken (Figure 1). It was decided that the patient should undergo emergency thoracoscopy to exclude vascular injury, ascertain the position of the knife and remove it under direct vision. The patient had normal dentition, a non-protruding mandible, full range of neck and jaw movements and a Mallampati score of 1. Both doctors who came with the patient could not inform if she had eaten before the assault. After transfer to the operating theatre the right radial artery was cannulated and invasive blood pressure monitoring was started.

She was preoxygenated in the left lateral position for 5 min (Figure 2). With the patient supported by theatre personnel in the left lateral position, a modified rapid sequence induction was performed with 20 mg etomidate and 70 mg rocuronium. Direct laryngoscopy revealed a Cormack and Lehane grade 1 view, and a size 37 mm left double-lumen endobronchial tube (Bronchocath) was inserted. Two-handed cricoid pressure, as originally described by Sellick, was maintained until tracheal cuff inflation and satisfactory tube placement had been confirmed by ausculation. Correct endobronchial placement was further verified by the use of a flexible fibreoptic bronchoscope. Anesthesia was maintained with isoflurane, air and oxygen, plus 2 μg/kg fentanyl. Ventilation of the left lung continued whilst the right lung was deflated. On video-assisted thoracoscopy the knife was found not to have penetrated any major vascular structures or the esophagus. It was removed without incident. Afterwards a chest drain was inserted and the patient was extubated.

As per the Dr. Scully's and Dr. Mallard's request, patient will be kept under watch to verify any unexpected reaction towards medication, and pain sedation will be kept on steady levels until second order.

P.s.: Hospital security was also requested as per NCIS Director's orders, as patient seems to be an important witness of a double murder investigation, wounded while still under protection of NCIS agents. 


	16. They live among us

_**CHAPTER15: They live among us.  
**_**  
**"Coffee?"

McGee looks up from his shaking hands at the tall FBI agent, who is offering a cup of hospital  
coffee with a sympathetic smile on his face. He accepts the cup, takes a sip and grimaces at the bitter taste of it.

Mulder sits beside McGee, and frowns at the awful taste of his own coffee.

"Who exactly are you?" McGee stares at his coffee, as he makes his question to the FBI agent.

Mulder sits back on the hospital chair, and prepares to tell his woeful tale to the young NCIS agent.

"Well, my name is Fox Mulder, and I'm an FBI agent. I'm a profiler, but for the last couple of years I've been doing something closer to my heart, so I'm the head of the X-files division."

Gibbs closes his cell phone, approaches the two agents, and sits down, catching the tail end of the conversation. Vance, Tony and Ziva had stayed behind to clean up the mess and figure out how those bozos bulldozed their way into NCIS.

"What are the X-files?"

Mulder looks up from his coffee, and smiles tiredly at Gibbs, mentally preparing himself to the skepticism he can feel under those cold blue eyes gazing at him.

"An X-file was initially an unsolved case that had gone cold for lack of suspects or a plausible explanation, and was shoved down into a small basement room in the Hoover. During the years, it started to collect several cases of unexplained phenomena, monster sightings, alien abductions, conspiracy victims, anything that falls out of the mainstream of investigation of the Bureau."

"And why would the FBI create a division solely to investigate those crimes? And why would you dedicate your time to it?"

Mulder stares at Gibbs, and sees he is genuinely curious of his motivations.

He leans closer to Gibbs, and supports his elbows on his knees, and starts his old tale, "you see, there is a silent conspiracy against the American people, which has been put into motion several decades ago."

Gibbs smirks and shakes his head, incredulous at the bullshit this Agent is spilling at him, completely serious about it.

"Laugh all you want, but I know it is truth. My father was part of it."

Gibbs becomes serious with that piece of information.

"Thanks to his participation on the project, he was forced to sacrifice my sister, for testing. She was taken, when she was eight."

"Taken by who?" asks McGee, looking at Mulder.

Mulder sighs, and swirls the coffee in his paper cup. "Initially I thought she had been abducted by aliens, as my memory from that night was distorted, if not blurry. Later on, just one year ago actually, I've found out that it had been my father's project buddies who took her, performed hideous experiments on her, and later on killed her."

McGee and Gibbs stay in silence, absorbing the horror of his story.

"Do you have proof of that?" Gibbs is trying to imagine the horror of knowing the role of your own father in such terrible crime.

"Proof? I have plenty of proof. I have a basement full of it. But none of it is admissible on court. They are too powerful to be taken down. The witnesses on my cases die horrible and unexpected deaths. Or the military come, and rob it away from right under my nose."  
Gibbs lowers his head, and stares at the mobile phone he has on his phone, flipping it open and close.

"What did the Director say?"

Gibbs looks up at McGee, who is looking at him with worried eyes. He had after all, killed an army officer. It had been a justified killing, but a killing nonetheless.

"Abby has run an intense check on Navy, Army and Air Force Personnel files. There is no General Striker anywhere on Federal, State or local sections of either force, and that officer you killed, we had no hits on his prints."

"No hits?" Mulder can feel his eyebrows going up with this information.

"None."

McGee bites his lower lip, thinking. "The same thing happened when we tried to run … well who we thought to be Martha Simmons' prints on the system. No hits."

Mulder glances at McGee, "Do you think…"

"It's a possibility we might have to consider."

Gibbs looks from one agent to the other, trying to follow their line of thinking.

"What?"

"Boss, imagine that. Martha Simmons officially does not exist, at least not the way imagined her to exist. General Striker also doesn't, but he had all the credentials and the necessary clearance to send a small strike force in a highly protected Navy base and use force to do an extraction. That officer that I killed, also had the necessary clearance to enter by NCIS gates without raising suspicions on himself. Mrs. Hart mentioned that the other one, Mr. Evans, had great credentials, she had never suspected he was not who he said he was."

"Are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting, McGee? That somehow these…" Gibbs makes a hand gesture, trying vaguely to point the ICU doors where Ducky and Scully had disappeared several hours back and had not come out since.

"They live among us, like us," says softly Mulder, his eyes shining with the perspective.  
Both Gibbs and McGee look at him, and Mulder starts speaking excitedly, as the ideas start forming in his head.

"What better place than to hide in plain sight? They talk like us, they live like us, and they bleed like us. The only different between then and us is that they seem to have some extraordinary abilities out of human range, but other than that, they have to study, work and do all the other things us humans do."

"But that doesn't explain the lack of hits on their fingerprints." Gibbs shakes his head, still an unbeliever.

"Actually it does." Mulder stands up, and starts pacing up and down on the waiting room.  
He stops and turns to the two NCIS agents.

"Maybe before the information age they didn't have to worry with that, because it was very simple to create a new persona and simply disappear. You only had to die in a horrible accident, cover your tracks and relocate. But now, everything is controlled. Pictures are needed for any document you have to issue, and your fingerprint is collected several instances during a person's lifetime to be input in a government database somewhere."

"What exactly are you trying to say?" McGee is not exactly following.

Mulder sits down again besides him. "She said she is the last one. The last Alpha. What if there are others with another name or qualification, like the one she killed in the bullpen, living among us, for decades or centuries. If every time they had to input their fingerprints on the system for anything originate a hit, we would see hundreds, maybe thousands of hits popping out, and we could easily locate them as they would be the same fingerprint for different people. That's why their prints don't get into the system, so we won't know who they are through time."

"That's a good explanation as any for why. But what about how? How can they do it? How can they cover their own tracks?" asks McGee, his mind already going to the elaborated computer system needed to cover the tracking of hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of beings like the one they had on the ICU right now.

"That's something you will have to ask her when she's fine."

The ICU door open and Scully, Ducky and another doctor come out, walking towards the agents. McGee and Gibbs stand up, and wait for the info they are going to give them.

"She's alive, but it was close. Too close for my liking," Ducky glances at Scully, who nods in agreement.

"She lost a lot of blood, which we had some difficult to replace, as she has a very rare type. Besides, we had to deflate the lung and we will keep her under a heavy dose of antibiotics and sedation for the next twenty four hours."

The tired doctor sighs, and stretches his hand to be shaken by Ducky and Scully, "It was a pleasure to work with you, doctors. I have still some rounds to do, but I'll check on her tomorrow morning to see if we will be able to change the dosage of her sedation."

"Thanks, Dr. Stephen," says Scully, shaking his hand.

He nods to the three men, and returns to the ICU.

Mulder walks up to Scully, who sighs as she glances at him.

"Tell me the truth."

She looks at him with tired eyes, "She stayed without a heartbeat for too long. They were able resuscitate her on route to the hospital, but only after she is stabilized enough they will be able to check if there was some brain damage."

"What are her chances?" McGee looks from Scully to Ducky, both with very reserved hopes on her recuperation.

"In a normal human being? I would say that she would have maybe thirty percent chance of not having any consequences of her wounds. In a human dragoness? I have no idea."

"Any chance of her changing by accident while a nurse is poking her in her sleep? Or any of her blood tests come up too strange and raise some flags."

Ducky smiles at the FBI agent, that Dr. Scully had informed is her partner, Agent Mulder.

"No, Agent Mulder, I don't see any chance of that happening. Based on my initial findings on both the living and specially the dead specimen I had the chance of studying, once they are in their human form, they are, at least physiologically, human. There is no instance that might slightly suggest that they aren't what they seem to be."

"So she won't change by accident." Gibbs stares at Ducky, who nods at his long term friend.

"The dragon was quite clear on her need of protection while we spoke on the bullpen. While she is hurt, she is vulnerable, as she would be stuck to her human form until her wounds are totally healed."

"I think the keyword here is the word vulnerable." All people look at Mulder, who starts pacing again.

"Every single time we're on the brink of some discovery, something like what happened in your morgue happens. Some dark government group comes and steals it right under our grasp. We can't let it happen to her."

"But how can we protect her?"

Ducky twists his hands, worried with his charge. Mulder smiles and looks at McGee with a knowing smile. McGee frowns at the look he's receiving from the FBI agent.

"What?"

"He's the key."

"Me? Did you hit your head harder than we thought?"

Mulder shakes his head, "no, just listen to me, ok. In several tales about dragons, whenever a dragon saves the life of human, or a human saves the life of a dragon, a link or bond is created between then."

"Mulder," Scully glares exasperated at her partner, "you can't base your speculations on fairy tales, that's a myth."

"Yes, that's a myth, just like the dragon changing into a woman we saw this afternoon. Just…" Mulder waves his hand in the air, trying to make a point, "just listen to me. You knew that she was in danger while you were still in the bullpen, and that's why you ran all the way to the morgue. You knew, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"And she jumped in front of a knife to save your life, didn't she?"

"Yes."

"So…"

"Are you telling me that I got a dragon pet now?"

"Not a pet. Maybe they call themselves companions, I don't know. I don't know which tale this one corresponds, but the bond exists. You felt it and you can't deny it."

McGee lowers his head, thinking about the feeling of dread that invaded him while he had been at the bullpen. The flashes of pain and fear, and the absolute certainty that Ducky and her were in terrible danger.

"Ok, let's suppose that it's truth." Mulder opens his mouth to speak, but McGee stops him straight away, raising a hand to shut him up, "I'm not admitting it, I'm just open to the possibility of it; How will I know that what I'm feeling is truth or not? And how can we separate friend from foe? If what we were speculating before is truth, anyone that crosses our path could be one of them, and we won't have any idea who they are."

Gibbs smirks, and shakes his head, "Ah we will."

McGee looks at Gibbs, who turns his head to look at the ICU doors, separating them from the wounded female.

"It's quite simple actually: Anyone who tries to kill her or us is a foe. Anyone who is not trying to kill her, we could initially treat them as a friend, until we figure out their intentions. Our main concern now is to keep her safe until she is coherent enough to give us her statement."

"And ensure no one will try to steal her away from us," says Mulder, giving a significant glance at Scully, who nods in agreement.

Ducky looks confused at them.

"Why?"

"Because every time we ever faced a creature or evidence that could bring light to one of our cases, we were stonewalled. There are forces in the government that would do their utmost to sweep it under the carpet. They wouldn't think twice before invading this hospital and, under cover of a breach of technicality, take her away never to be seen again."

"Why would they take her away?" Ducky frowns thinking on the fragile creature he held on his arms, and the purring ball he had carefully set the wing straight.

"Tests and more tests. She would be a valuable weapon if they were able to manipulate and control, or maybe even harness her power and magic." Scully touches her own neck, feeling the scar of the chip that saved her life but that almost cost her life.

"Poor child."

"We'll stay with her until she wakes up and talk to her."

"And protect her both from human and dragon foes," says Ducky.


	17. Vigil over a human dragoness

_**Chapter 16: Vigil over a human dragoness  
**_  
_**...perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us." - Rainer Maria Rilke quotes  
**_  
After the initial hours in ICU, the wounded woman, which they still had no idea how to call her, was transferred to a private room on a secure wing of the Bethesda Military hospital.

Once there, both Mulder and Gibbs agreed that they should divide themselves on turns, and keep guard to ensure that there would be no repeats of the incident in the morgue of NCIS.

Tony and Ziva arrived at the hospital, and told Gibbs how Vance was pissed off at the breach of security that allowed those soldiers to enter the building and attempt to steal both the body of the late Mr. Evans, aka Killer Red Psycho, and attack Ducky and the wounded green one.

Heads would roll, and Vance was eager to order the guillotine down some necks.

Abby also called, and informed Gibbs on the speakerphone that all blood samples and other things collected from the late Mr. Evans during the autopsy Ducky made were normal. Boringly normal. There was absolutely nothing on them that could suggest that he wasn't human.

Same thing with the blood samples they took from the interrogation room where the woman was attacked, and the bullpen where both dragons bled profusely.

She examined the glass shards used against the green dragon, and again, no alteration on the blood.

Scully and Ducky hear the news astonished with the consequences of this finding.

"They are human. At least on the molecular and biological level, they are human." Scully shakes her head at the idea, and turns to Ducky, "How is that possible?"

Ducky sighs and looks at the redhead, "I have no idea, my dear. There is nothing that evenly remotely gives the suspicion that the man I made my autopsy was not human. If I hadn't seen with my own eyes his transformation, I wouldn't believe he also was a dragon."

"So, we might have more dragons out there."

"And if they died in human form, we were never the wiser about them."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS 

Tony and Ziva stay the first watch over the wounded female, but there wasn't much to do but watch the machines forcing oxygen into her lungs, and the coming and going of nurses checking on her pressure level.

At the beginning of the evening, both McGee and Mulder take the night shift, and the FBI softly talks about the several legends involving dragons he knows.

"Did you know …" Mulder bites the hard shell of a sunflower seed and eats the soft kern, and puts the hard shell with the others on the corner of the bedside table, "that almost every primitive culture, from all around the world, has their myths about dragons?"

McGee looks up from his book, and glances at the unconscious woman lying on her side, with several tubes keeping her alive, then at the FBI agent.

"Really?"

Mulder nods, and pops another sunflower seed on his mouth.

"Many of these myths are very similar, but you wanna know what's so extraordinary about them?"

"What?"

"The people who created those myths, they never met each other. Even though their stories are quite similar, there were thousands of miles between them, and every single tale that speaks about a dragon, they are almost the same."

McGee folds his arms, stares at Mulder.

"They could have heard stories about them, and adapted to their own context."

"I don't think so. Several of them remained isolated until after the middle ages, and the belief on the myths of dragons had originated thousands of years before. There was no exchange of information between them."

McGee's eyes leave Mulder, and look at the female, who is still sleeping drugged up to the gills.

"What do you know about them?"

Mulder rubs his hands together, and immediately goes into lecture mode.

"Dragons are in present day culture always associated with fire, but initially the very first dragon to appear in any mythology, was a water creature. The creature which ruled the watery chaos on the myth of creation of the Sumerians. Zu, the sea creature, steals the laws of the universe from the Enli, the Sumerian supreme god. Enlil orders Ninurta, the sun god, to kill Zu and retrieve the laws. Zu's death restores order to the universe. Thanks to this myth, many different cultures began to adopt the idea of gods fighting with dragons to restore order in their mythology."

Now, in the Babylonian mythology, it was the sea goddess Tiamat the one who wrecks havoc. She leads an army of dragons and sea serpents against the gods. Marduk, The champion of the Babylonian gods, cuts Tiamat in half and uses one half to make the sea and the other to make the sky. Sumerian and Babylonian myths most likely had an effect on Egypt later mythology. That's where they have the myth of the creation of Apophis the giant serpent who battles with the Egyptian sun god. They believed that the battle occurred every single day, on the sunset and sunrise. So, in Egypt it wasn't a creationist myth anymore, but an everyday struggle of the gods."

"The Egyptians also introduced the belief of fire breathing dragons, as they believed that wicked souls would be devoured by one."

"What a lovely image," says McGee, and puts his book away on the chair and stands up, just to stretch his legs.

"It was only in early Christian texts that dragons were directly associated with evil, being the devil himself or a servant of the devil. That's especially thanks to the book of Revelations: "...and the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent that is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world..."

McGee walks closer to the hospital bed, and looks down at the face of the female, with an oxygen mask to help her breath and several tubes protruding from the neck of her hospital gown.

"Do you think they are evil?"

Mulder frowns at the question. "I don't know. Do you?"

"I don't know. I don't know anything anymore." McGee sits down again, and rubs his face in frustration. "My life was complicated enough before I stepped right in the middle of a battle that I have no idea how to deal with it."

"But that's an amazing opportunity. Think about it like this, you are being given a glimpse of something very few people in their whole lives had the chance to see. Some people would die or kill to be exactly where you are."

"I don't think that's a comforting thought."

"Maybe not, but there is a reason why you're here." McGee looks up, and sees Mulder frowning at his own words. "There is a reason why she stepped before that knife, a reason why she saved your life. So you could save hers now."

"I just hope that's enough."

They didn't speak for the rest of the night.


	18. History and myth intertwined

_**Chapter 17: history and myth intertwined.  
**_  
Early in the following morning, Mulder leaves McGee asleep in the hospital chair while Gibbs takes over his position as watcher of the wounded female. Gibbs is sipping his dark boiling coffee when he sees her twitch and a faint moan of pain escaping her lips.

He immediately stands up, and approaches her bed. He is surprised to see her awake, her hazel eyes looking around confused at the multitude of machines connected to her, beeping and helping her breath. She moans again, despite the tube down her throat , and Gibbs presses the button to call the nurse.

"Relax, someone will come soon to give you something for the pain."

She blinks tiredly, and her eyes land on Gibbs, who is looking at her with worry on his eyes.

He moves his hand to touch her arm, in a soothing way, and he is surprised at the terror in her eyes, as she flinches and tries desperately to move away from his reach.

"What's wrong?"

She looks into his eyes, frightened, and he can clearly hear a whisper on his mind.

_Not safe.  
_  
"That's you. Isn't it?"

She blinks.

He stretches his hand again, she flinches, and he hears it again.

_Not safe.  
_  
Gibbs walks up to a chair, gets it and brings it closer to her bedside.

"Why it's not safe?"

Her answer is interrupted by the entrance of two nurses, one brunette and another blonde, who come up to her bedside and the blonde immediately takes her hand, measuring her pulse and taking notes on her chart, ignoring her weak attempts to remove her hand from her grasp.

"Good morning, sleeping beauty. What gorgeous eyes you have!" the short blonde nurse says, letting go of her hand and touching the skin of her neck, checking the position of the tube down her throat, despite her feeble attempts to battle the nurse's hands away.

They poke and prod her, ignoring her tears. They fluffy her pillows, check the machines, take more notes, and adjust the pain sedation.

"The doctor will do his rounds in one hour, he will then decide if he will remove the breathing tube or not, ok dear?" The brunette nurse says with a smile. The blonde nurse leans over her face, touches her hair, wipes her tears.

"If you need anything, we'll be on the nurse station," the brunette says to Gibbs, and waves for her colleague, who pauses by the sleeping McGee, grabs his jacket from the floor and delicately cover him, before leaving the room.

Gibbs looks from the door to McGee, who is snoring away, then to the wounded woman, who is crying silently, eyes closed, her hands into tight fists.

"They touched you."

She opens her eyes, and looks at Gibbs.

_They will die for that.  
_  
Gibbs frowns at information.

"Why?"

_Everything I touch dies.  
_  
"You will kill them? How?"

She frowns at Gibbs.

_No, not me. The hunters will. They will sense my scent on their skin, and kill them for the information on my location.  
_  
She looks at him frightened, her hazel eyes swimming in tears.

Gibbs takes a moment digesting the information he was just given. He thinks back on the two murder victims that led them to her, and looks at her finally understanding her reluctance of speaking on the interrogation room.

"That's why they were killed. The lieutenant and the boy. They touched you."

She closes her eyes, and a tear escapes the corner of her eye, running over her delicate nose, to finally drip onto the pillow.

_She helped me up from the floor after I fell, and touched my arm on a place not covered by my long sleeves. For that act of kindness, she died.  
_  
"What about the boy?"

_I helped him at the library, protecting him from one of his usual tormentors. He took advantage of one moment my attention was elsewhere and kissed on the cheek.  
_  
Gibbs frowns at her, as she turns her face to the pillow and starts crying harder.

"Why? Why are you hunted? Why did he want you dead?"

She sniffs, and looks at him with red eyes.

_He didn't want me dead. I'm much more valuable to him alive.  
_  
Gibbs takes another sip of his now lukewarm coffee, and studies the hazel eyes looking at him with despair.

"How can we help you?"

Her answer was immediate, but unexpected.

_Why would you?  
_  
Gibbs looks at McGee, snoring exhausted in the other chair. He had considered screaming at him to wake up, but Mulder had told him how shaken McGee had been with the whole human/dragon bond thing, and how he had spent the whole night staring at the wounded woman with scared eyes, as if waiting for her to wake up and attack him anytime.

"Do you still have to ask? You saved one of mine."

With difficulty, she lifts her head out of the pillow and glances back to the chair where McGee is asleep. She studies his tired form for a moment, before settling down back on her pillows with a sigh.

_No human should be harmed by one of us. It's our law.  
_  
"That red one didn't seem interested to obey your laws. He was very intent on killing anyone and everyone who got on his way."

_Reds don't abide to our laws. They have their own set of rules. Their most important one is I take what I want, and destroy everything I can't take.  
_  
Gibbs stares at his coffee a moment.

"That Red, he wanted you. Why?"

She stays in silence, and closes her eyes, effectively shutting him out.

"Hey, I've asked you a question."

"Boss?"

Gibbs looks up from her face and sees that McGee is stretching himself, trying to massage his aching neck, resultant of sleeping in a bad position for several hours.

"Who are you speaking to?"

Gibbs looks at her again, but she is breathing deeply, probably pretending to be asleep.

"Nobody."

He sees her opening and closing her hand into a fist, fresh tracks of tears on her face.

"Nobody important."


	19. Missing the warmth

_**Chapter 18: Missing the warmth**_

_Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps:  
Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word:  
Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars:  
Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl:  
Kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth:  
Both young men, and maidens; old men, and children:  
Let them praise the name of the LORD: for his name alone is excellent ; his glory is above the earth and heaven.  
He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints; even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. Praise ye the LORD.__.  
_  
Tony and Ziva arrived in the middle of the morning, bringing fresh coffee and donuts for Gibbs and McGee, followed by the one of the FBI agents. The doctor one, the redhead, went to NCIS to review with Ducky the results of the autopsy of the late Mr. Evans, and check if there is anything at all that could learn to help the wounded one.

Psalm 148:7-14 – King James version

They find McGee and Gibbs staring at the sleeping woman who, after the visit of the doctor, had the oxygen tube removed and was only with a small nasal canula to help her breath. She was still being kept on her side, as her sutures on her back had to be kept unobstructed to the visit of the nurses and doctors.

After the brief moment of consciousness with Gibbs and the nurses early in the morning, she had not moved since.

"Hey McGoo, breakfast."

Tony throws a paper bag with a sandwich and two donuts to McGee, while Ziva silently brings a new coffee cup to Gibbs, who nods in thanks to her.

"Any news from the doctors?" asks Ziva in a low voice, studying the sleeping form. She has a better color now; she doesn't look as pale as before, when she was bleeding with an ornamental knife stuck to her back.

McGee opens the paper bag and offers a donut to Gibbs, who shakes his head refusing the offer.

"She is breathing better now than this morning, her lungs seem clear enough and they reduced the sedatives two hours ago. She might wake up any minute now."

McGee takes a bite on the donut, and moans at the delicious taste. He was starving, he hadn't eaten anything since the night before.

Mulder approaches the bed and studies the female on the bed. He looks at Gibbs, who senses the profiler's eyes on himself and lifts his eyes from her face to Mulder's. Gibbs smirks, and turns his eyes back to her face.

"How long has she been awake?" he asks Gibbs, who lowers his eyes to his coffee cup and smiles.

"She's awake?" McGee stands up, and looks at her still figure, but sees no sign that indicates she's awake.

"Five, ten minutes tops." Gibbs stands up, and approaches the bedside, "no need to pretend anymore, they know you are awake."

All humans hold their breath, as they see her breathing slowly, in a rhythm as someone sleeping.

"Come on, stop faking it." Gibbs takes a sip of his coffee, and just waits.

The agents in chorus take a step back when she simply opens her eyes, no vestige of sleep on them. She looks around, stopping at each agent's face before finally moving to Gibbs's face.

"How are you feeling?" He takes another sip of his coffee, and sighs at the bitter taste, just as he likes it.

She looks at his face for a long moment, before answering in a soft voice.

"Like I was stabbed on the back."

He smiles down at her, and shakes his head.

"I should have seen that coming."

She smiles faintly and nods. She then looks around on the room, leaning a little her back on the soft pillows, until her eyes fall on McGee, who had finished his donut and was looking at her with a concerned expression on his face, from the foot of her medical bed.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Both stare at each other for a moment, making both Gibbs and Mulder curious at these two connection.

"Thanks for saving my life. That knife had my name on it."

She blinks and licks her dried out lips.

"No human should be harmed by one of us. Especially one marked as friend."

He shakes his head, confused. She closes her eyes for a moment.

"I don't follow. Marked as friend?"

McGee just looks at her trying to follow her conversation, but Mulder is getting excited with the news.

"So, I was right, wasn't I? So there is a connection between you two?"

_Ah, where is Scully when I need her?_

She opens her eyes, and looks at the tall excited stranger at the foot of her bed, beside the light haired man she got wounded trying to protect.

She frowns at him as she feels a strange simmering power on him, a signature of something she hadn't seen for a long time.

"Who are you? And why a watcher was sent to me?"

"Me?" He points to himself, and sits on the corner of her bed, "I'm Special Agent Fox Mulder, of the FBI. I'm from a division specialized in unexplained phenomena and you're as much unexplained as anything I've ever seen. What's a watcher?"

She leans her head to the side, trying to look at him better, without touching her back on the pillows behind her.

"Every generation, a few chosen humans are handpicked by the Elementals to act as liaisons between my world and yours. You're one of them."

Mulder chuckles, and shakes his head, "You're mistaken: I'm an FBI agent. I have no idea what an Elemental is, and I definitely I'm not a watcher. Even if I was, I wouldn't know what to do."

She studies his face for a while, and for a moment her eyes become yellow. McGee doesn't flinch, as he had seen that up close before, but Ziva and Tony take a step back and Gibbs' hand freezes with his coffee on the way up to his mouth.

"What the hell—" Tony mutters in a low voice, and he feels Ziva's small fingers digging on his arm. Yep, that freaked out his little Mossad assassin. Hell, that had freaked him out too.

"Your life path has been filled with pain and suffering. Someone dear and close to you was taken from you when you were still young, and that pain drove you to seek answers beyond the realm of common sense. You've seen things. Terrifying things, that no one would believe you if you told them. Your enemies seek your death, but they are not allowed to kill you, as your death would trigger a set of events that would ultimately destroy them. So they keep you on a tight leash, showing glimpses of their secrets, never giving you the chance of step up and take the reins of your own life. You wish sometimes to give up, but the price that has already been paid has been steep. My world is not something strange to you. Others, maybe not of my kind, but other species that dwell in the darkness have already visited you. They sense your ability to see them and to interact with them. That's what a watcher does. So that's the reason why you are not afraid of me."

Mulder stares into her yellow eyes, and sees when they become the normal human hazel color again. He bites his lower lip, taking a deep breath to control his emotional response to what she had revealed. In order to cover his internal upheaval, he resorts to his usual weapon of choice: humor.

"Well, that explains a lot." He rubs his hands over his trouser's legs, "and I always thought it was just a feeling that the universe was out to get me. Now, to have the confirmation that it is really out to get me is… comforting, at least."

She leans back on her pillows, and looks at him with pity.

"I'm sorry, the Elementals are neither evil nor good. They just are. Their decisions are final, and there's no way to escape the destiny they set forth for us."

Mulder rubs his face, and thinks about what she has revealed.

"So these Elementals, they are… like Gods or something."

"No."

Mulder frowns at her response.

"No?"

"No."

"Like the Greek fates?"

"No."

Gibbs ends his coffee and throws the empty cup on a trash can, and approaches her bedside again, smirking at the confused expression on the FBI agent's face.

"Like –"

"No."

"I didn't even ask my question."

"I didn't have to hear it to know the answer is no. The Elementals are not gods. They are justice and order. They are not touched by the passions that plague the creatures under them. They just are."

McGee takes a step further, and decides to interfere on their conversation.

"Why did the other try to kill you? And why did you say I was marked as a friend?"

Her hazel eyes return to McGee, and she looks at him for a moment before answering.

"I'm not the first one of my kind you encounter, am I?"

McGee frowns at her, and he feels the gazes of everyone on the room burning on him. He blushes brightly, and shakes his head.

"I don't know what you are talking about."

She closes her eyes for a moment, and when she opens them again they are yellow again.

"You were but a small child, on an open field with some trees some yards back. You were playing alone, as your sister hadn't been born yet. It was a nice day, with just some clouds on the sky. Suddenly the weather changed, the sky becoming dark with heavy gray clouds; the thunder voices roared and you got scared and you remembered the warnings of your mother about staying out in the rain. You ran to the protection of the trees, but before you reached it, you were hit by lightening."

He stares at her for a moment, overcome with the memories of the event she's talking about.

"Wait a minute. I remember that. I was six. My mother told me that they found me lying down on the field behind our house in the rain, unconscious but alive. I stayed one week sick with a cold, but the doctors had no idea what struck me unconscious. I just had a small burn on my neck, but nothing they could identify."

She nods, "you were struck by lightening resultant of a fight between a Golden Alpha and a Blue Alpha. Both command the weather elements, and believed that the area they chose to engage in battle was devoid of innocent life when they started their combat. They were horrified that, when they finished their exercise, they found a small human child fatally wounded by their power. Terrified with what they've done, they healed you, and branded you as protected and friend by our race. Any dragon that approached you would immediately be bound to protect you, by the laws of our people."

"How do you know that?" Gibbs asks her, his arms folded and supporting his six on one of the machines attached to her.

She sighs as she looks at the gray haired man.

"I'm a Green Alpha, our strongest gift is knowledge and wisdom, either from the past, the present; sometimes we're given glimpses of the future. However, we're forbidden to seek knowledge of our own fate, so anyone related to us are just gray areas."

Gibbs' face becomes serious, as he thinks of the battle he witnessed.

"The Red …" he leaves it hanging, waiting for her to continue it for him. He didn't have to wait for long.

"He wanted to add my gifts to his line. The Reds' strongest features are cunningness and strategic thinking. They are spectacular foes, and very hard to escape, once you are one of their targets."

Tony lifts his hand, asking for the chance to speak. Everyone looks at him, "how would he add your gifts to his line?"

Everybody in the small hospital room sees her shiver, her eyes filling with tears and fear. She folds her legs, in a vain attempt to turn into a smaller target, and they can literally feel her terror emanating in waves. When she answers, they finally understand her terror.

"He would rape me repeatedly, until I become with child. Once the child was born, he would train it to use its gifts for his own profit. If the child is mind blind, or her gift is not strong enough, he would kill the hatchling and start all over again," she wipes a tear from her face, "that's what happened with my mother. My father had killed three hatchlings before I was conceived. She couldn't deal with the possibility of him killing me too, even though the midwife had informed her that my gift was strong. She also didn't agree with the possibility of me being given as a reproductive mare for the Reds, which was the contract my father had sealed even before I was born, so she arranged for me to be taken out of my father's grasp, and substituted me for a dead infant."

She sighs and wipes her tears which are falling freely from her face.

"The price she paid for my freedom was steep: My father, once he learned that the hatchling had been born dead, killed her. She never stood a chance."

"I'm sorry," Mulder stretches his hand to touch her bare arm, to console her, but she flinches away. He freezes when he sees her reaction.

"What's wrong? I'm not going to hurt you."

"But I might. Do not touch me."

"Why not?"

Gibbs stands straighter, "that's something I would like to know too. Why everyone who touches you dies?"

She looks with tortured eyes at Gibbs, and Tony, Ziva, McGee and Mulder look at Gibbs curious at that information.

Gibbs barely glances at his agents, before turning cold blue eyes back at her, "That's what happened with the lieutenant and the boy. They just touched her, and were killed for it."

She shivers under his stare, and lowers her eyes for her hands. She notices that they are shaking.

"Every one hundred years, the female alphas become fertile. Their scent is very characteristic and strong, only to those of our race. That's how the males find us. It also spreads easily, by direct contact of bare skin. That's why I wear long sleeved blouses and gloves, so no one may be endangered by me. But it failed, and two people died because of me."

She looks at Mulder, "If you touch me, my scent will transfer to you, and any male who crosses your path might attack you for the information on my location. If a Red finds you, he will kill you for that. And I can't have another innocent's blood in my hands."

Mulder sighs deeply, considering the information he had been just given.

"If that's true, half of the emergency team of this hospital will die, as they all touched you trying to save your life."

She sobs, terrified of what she's done to those who only tried to help her.

"You should have left me die. If the human dies, the dragon dies too. My existence would have been over and a lot of pain would have been avoided."

Mulder looks at the crying woman, no, dragoness before him and decides to make a stand. He stretches his hand and holds her arm.

"NOO," she looks at him, with terrified eyes.

He shakes his head, and takes her hand on his own and squeezes.

"No, please, they will kill you." She sobs, her huge hazel eyes pleading at him to let go.

He looks into her eyes, and squeezes her hand firmly, not letting her take her hand out of his grasp, "I want you to listen to me, and listen to me very carefully."

"Please, let go. Please."

He shakes his head, "I'm going to die. We're all going to die. That's an integral part of human life. One day or the other, that's bound to happen. And I'm not going to be afraid of something that might happen or not, and not enjoy the extraordinary miracle I have before me."

She keeps sobbing, pleading him to let go of her hand. He shakes his head, and keeps talking, "The sense of touch is essential for the mental health of every creature on earth. Whether it's from the animal kingdom or human, touch is the first sense a baby uses to explore the world. You can't force yourself to live without it, and expect to live a full life. It's unhealthy. And you deserve to live, not to hide under gloves and long sleeved shirts."

She lowers her eyes to their joined hands, and mutters something he can't hear it.

"Excuse me?"

"Warm," she whispers in a very soft voice.

"What's warm?"

She lifts tearful eyes at him.

"Your skin. It's warm. I had forgotten how it feels someone's skin against mine."

Ziva looks at their joined hands, then at the crying woman.

"When was the last time you touched someone else on your own free will?"

She looks at Ziva, and sighs, "with the exception of the last two accidental touches this week, the last time I touched someone's skin was on May 14, 1305."

She looks down at her hands joined into Mulder's, "But he was already dead, and his hands were cold, so cold. I had to touch him to prepare him to his burial, as he had made me promise I would. He was a Franciscan priest who sheltered me and taught me how to live among humans, without calling attention to my gifts. I met him when he had been just ordained priest, and he was one of the only living beings ever to care for me, and I protect him until he became old and frail. He died on his sleep of old age, and as he requested, I buried him on the feet of his favorite tree, surrounded by his garden he had tended until his very last breath."

She looks up at Ziva, "I have not touched anything living since then."

* * *

a/n: Oh... poor Kismet!


	20. Dawn of a new hope

_**Chapter **__**19: Dawn of a new hope  
**_  
In the other side of the city, in a small dark bar downtown in a very dangerous neighborhood, a muscular blond man wiped the counter of his bar. It was his pride and his joy, and he was happy with his accomplishments so far. His powerful hands seemed not to match with the activity of wiping tables or washing delicate crystal glasses, but he was proud of his establishment.

After all, the bar itself was just a façade for its real purpose. Behind a small door in the kitchen, leading to the heavily protected building with mazelike corridors upstairs, there was a small refuge that all magical creatures, either in flight or being hunted, could seek shelter. Inside the walls of his building, they had sanctuary.

No creature, either good or bad, was allowed to fight in the premises. He would not allow it.

A small bearded man, his beard carefully trimmed and twisted, resembling a little bit of those pictures of elves we read about in fairy tales, approaches him in a hurried step as he is pouring a glass of golden foaming beer to a three horned demon, who was lazily sitting on a stool by the bar counter.

The small man is dressed to the nines, in a dark green suite with a bright green vest. His eyes, also green, shone with enthusiasm for life, and the wrinkles around them were silent witnesses of his joyful character. His boots were carefully polished, as if he spent several hours just to give the perfect shine to it.

"Have you heard the news?" the highly excited man said as soon as he was standing beside his friend, rolling excitedly on the balls of his feet.

The blonde behind the counter just throws a side glance at him, and starts preparing a Devil's kiss to a Succubus, who just arrived to the counter and was licking its sharp teeth, staring its own image at the mirrors behind the counter.

"No, but I'm sure you're about to tell me," says the blond, turning his back to his friend as he gets a huge casket of twenty year old single malt and puts it under his strong muscular arm, as if it was just a shoe box, and moves it closer to the snarling Turquoise Beta Dragon on table three. The Beta pays for the casket in cash, puts the casket under his arm and flies away to his own lair.

"Stupid Turquoises, always unsociable," mutters him, pockets the money and returns to the counter.

"She's alive," says the excited man, barely containing his enthusiasm with the news he is bringing to his friend.

The blond man ignores his friend, and nods to the Dream Eater sitting on table nine sipping a glass of port wine

"Nice."

"Nice? I'm telling you the greatest news in our world since Coralien decided to marry the Lycans King, and all you are going to say is nice?"

The blond shrugs, uninterested, "I don't care about the intrigues of the world out there, I have a lot to deal within my walls, Trink."

The short man, whose name is Trink, the elf, rushes to him, and grabs the muscular arm of his friend, who glares down at him, irritated, "but you should, especially if it regards you and your future."

"I don't see how it would change my life in anyway." He removes his friend's hand from his arm, and walks towards the counter, just to freeze when he hears his next words.

"The Green Alpha is alive."

The whole bar freezes at the small man's words, and all turn to him, incredulous. Rumors of a female Green Alpha had been abundant for centuries, but no one had ever been able to catch a glimpse of her, and there was no certainty that she even existed.

She was as elusive as the Queen of the Amazons, probably just a myth.

The blond sighs deeply, and turn to look at his friend. His face is impassive, but his eyes now are shining a deep yellow light.

"You lie."

"No," the little man approaches him, staring at his tall friend.

The blond looks around, at the several demons, beasts and dragons staring at them two, listening to their conversation.

"You lie," he hisses between his teeth, "all female Green Alphas are dead."

The small man shakes his head, knowing that his friend is denying the truth just to protect himself. After all, after despairing of ever finding a mate, and being taunted with the elusive existence of one for centuries, it was better to deny than to hope.

"Celine Balkan, she's a nurse in Bethesda Military hospital, and one of my girlies, we meet sometimes. She called me all excited telling me that some NCIS agents had brought a wounded female to the hospital. And, that there were rumors that she had destroyed the bullpen during the attack of a Red Alpha."

In a flash, the small man sees himself in the grip of his tall muscular friend, who holds him by his collar and has lifted the small man so he can be on his own eye level, "Did he harm her?"

The small man gulps and nods.

"Yes, both human and dragon were wounded in battle, but the human wounds were serious enough to demand hospitalization. Right now she's been kept under lock and key in Bethesda, until the humans decide what to do with her."

The blond man's eyes shine brightly then turn to its normal hazel human color. He releases his friend, who falls to the floor and has to struggle to keep standing. He looks around the bar at the several creatures who, during the last centuries, sought him out for guidance or for shelter.

As a male Green Alpha, he had the honor and the duty to protect those who sought him, as the Alpha's were the hatchlings who held in them the strongest gifts of the clan.

Specifically in the Green clan, said powers were teleporting, visions of the future, time traveling and a huge list that seemed more like a small sample of all powers of dragons united.

That's why the female Greens had been kidnapped, incarcerated and practically exterminated by the Reds during their quest for power. Several preferred certain death than to mate with Reds.

The male Greens were then left without mates, as the few females in existence all went into hiding, or killed themselves, leaving the Green clan to slowly become extinct.

Two dwarfs, with their long beards almost to the floor, stand up and go closer to the blond.  
"Rav, that's great news. If you need our sword, we're with you."

A twisted horn demon, his blue skin shining under the faint light, known for his short temper and eagerness to enter into a fight, drinks his whole pint in one gulp and slaps the glass on the counter, and stands up too.

"Today is a beautiful day for killing some Reds. I'm in."

Slowly, one by one of the bar tenants stood up, showing their support to the male Green Alpha.

Remki, one of the dwarfs, approaches the blond man, who is looking at all his friends who are willing to fight beside him so he may protect a female Green Alpha.

"If one Red went after her, it's just a matter of time before others find out where she is, and the humans don't have enough firepower to keep a Red invasion at bay."

Ravlir, the last male Green Alpha of his clan, sighs deeply and closes his eyes. For centuries, he had despaired as he knew that his clan was condemned to extinction, as only a handful of female betas had been born in the last millennium, and the only Alpha had been born dead. Rumors of the existence of a living Green Alpha had fed his hope for centuries, as he had sought her out just get frustrated at each dead end.

Now, it seems that his centuries old search is closer to an end.

He opens his eyes, and looks around his faithful friends. His eyes turn from hazel to yellow, and he lets the power of the dragon flow freely. His dragon is eager for hunt and for a fight.

"Let's go kill some Reds," Rav says, and the whole bar roars with joy. People start gathering their things for the raid.

"What about the humans? She will be surrounded by them," the blue dancing demon said, as he gets a scythe from his backpack.

"No harm must be done to the humans, just keep your eyes out for any Reds." Ravlir sighs, thinking about the difficulties they will face. "It will be an extraction mission: we get in, get her out, without getting too much attention to us."

The two three horned demons start snickering, "sure, we will be very discreet when we enter the military hospital."


	21. I can't help touching you

_**Chapter 20: I can't help touching you**_

After some minutes looking around, Ziva finds McGee sitting silently at the cafeteria of the hospital, staring at his cup of coffee with a forlorn expression that betrays is inquietude with the situation they found themselves in.

"Hey," she calls out softly, and he lifts troubled eyes to her, and answers also in a soft voice.

"Hey."

She sits down beside him, and for a moment she feels uncharacteristic at loss of words, as how can she comment on the things they've seen, and the apparent protection granted to him by a species that they had no idea that even existed.

McGee has always been a thinker, and he was literally exhausting himself trying to figure out what to do with the information they had been given.

The chance encounter when he was a child, and the silent protection that led that woman, who happens to be the last of her kind, to put herself between a deadly knife and their gentle computer tech. Ziva was grateful that the woman had protected him but, knowing McGee, his overactive mind must be working overtime, inundating him with guilt at the almost death of the last of their clan.

"How are you dealing with all of this?" She decides to go straight to the point, no reason to beat around the tree. Or was it the bush?

He smiles faintly at her, "which part? The part that a dragon saved my life today or the one that a dragon – or dragons – saved my life several years back?"

Ziva smiles, and starts tracing small circles on the table of the cafeteria. They should wipe it with something else; it's a little bit greasy still.

"Both things, I think. I imagine that it must be mind-oggling to imagine that they are around us, they always have been around us, and that they even touched and contacted us sometime in our life, but we have never had any inkling that they were not what they seemed to be."

McGee stares at Ziva's face for a moment, thinking about what she said. She feels his gaze burning, and stares back at him.

"What? Is it not true?"

"The word is boggling, Ziva, mindboggling." He says smiling, and she shrugs, uninterested. "And yes, it is terrifying to think that they are everywhere, that anyone might be one of them, but it's also comforting."

She looks at him, confused with the faint smile on his face, silently asking him to continue.

"If she exists, if dragons exist and live among us, it's not a big leap to imagine that all the other creatures that we just heard and read about might be real as well. Imagine a world where elves, fairies, gryphons, dragons and unicorns all exist, apart from humanity, in hiding, and no one has any idea they exist. That is really mindboggling to me."

She nods, and looks at her own hands, "yes, it would an interesting world."

"And a terrifying world," says McGee, earning a speculative look from Ziva, "just imagine it: for centuries she denied herself the right of touching another living being, living in terror that her own existence would put in dangers others. Knowing that just a touch," he stretches his hand, and takes Ziva's smaller and warmer hand in his, and stares at their joined hands for a moment, then lifting his green eyes to her brown ones, and she is fascinated by the deep emotion she sees in them, "could condemn someone to death. That's not living. I don't think I could live without it, without being able to…"

His voice fails, his eyes staring into hers. Ziva gulps, feeling suddenly very warm, the hidden strength of his fingers holding hers, and his thumb slowly running over the skin over her hand.

"I couldn't live without it, knowing I couldn't at least touch you." He says finally the truth that has been eating his soul, staring into her eyes. His eyes lower to her lips, and Ziva feels herself leaning towards him, and they stop mere inches from each other, and he still whispers her name before leaning over and taking her lips into a kiss.

It was sweet and innocent, words that she had always associated with McGee but never with any of her interactions with the opposite sex. She has always been brass and bold, taking what she wanted and leaving broken hearts on her wake, but the faint touch of their lips, the sigh he exhaled as he leaned down to deepen the kiss, his tongue silently asking for entrance, and her silent acquiescence were too much.

She lifts one hand from their joined hands to touch his face, her fingers silently tracing the curve of his ear and sinking on his soft hair. She opens her mouth to his attack, and he takes the invitation with gusto, tasting the coffee she had finished just some minutes before. She moans and he freezes and stops the kiss, looking at her terrified of what he's done.

"I'm sorry."

He can't meet her eyes, nervously putting away his now cold coffee.

"I was out of line, please forgive me."

He stands up, and starts walking away, without looking back, leaving a surprised Ziva staring at his retreating back, completely baffled at what has just happened


	22. Past unearthed

**_Chapter 21: Past unearthed_**

While the mythological creatures prepared to make their rescue mission, other forces were also at work getting ready to storm the Bethesta Military Hospital.

On one side, a crew of Reds, with the information they received from Terran just before his death, was silently planning to steal the female away from the hands of the puny humans.

On another, a highly classified military group was driving through DC, with biohazard equipment to isolate and detain the creature currently in the ICU of Bethesda. After all, it would be a valuable weapon if they were able to control the creature.

They didn't care that it also had a human counterpart, now wounded and under medical care. The human was just a liability, something that they had all the intentions of using it to control the beast within.

Tonight, the human world would collide with myth, and the consequences for all those involved would be totally unexpected.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Ziva finds McGee standing at the feet of the ICU bed again, and he doesn't even acknowledge her entry in the room, his gaze fixed at the sleeping woman.

She glances at Gibbs, who is staring at McGee staring the sleeping woman.

"Any change?"

"Nope, she fell asleep some hours ago, not even a twitch." Gibbs stands up and goes to his younger agent, who seems to be deeply troubled with something.

"Anything in your mind?"

McGee glances at Gibbs, and his eyes flutter to Ziva for a second, who sits down in one of the chairs and stares back at him, impassive. His brief glance at Ziva is not missed by Gibbs, who frowns when McGee turns troubled eyes to him and says in an almost normal voice.

"Yes," he looks at the sleeping woman, "we don't even know her real name."

"That, my boy, I can answer for you," says Ducky, entering with some old books on his hands.

Gibbs approaches his friend, who supports the books on the feet of the bed, and starts ruffling the very old pages. Even Ziva stands up to look at it, curious at what Ducky has unearthed.

The FBI agents had left some hours before, promising to drop by after they reported to their boss, and Tony had left to bring food for everyone who was in vigil at the hospital.

"What are these, Ducky?" Ziva touches one of the books, and it seems to be a handwritten diary of some sort.

Ducky smiles at Ziva, proud of his heritage and of his findings, "these my dear, are the written rolls of the history of the McPhees. Mother brought it with her from Scotland, as she had inherited it from my grandmother, who made her promise to protect it with her life. She didn't pay attention to these old writings, but I was always fascinated with the amazing tales of bravery, war, famine and disease which are gathered in here."

He looks at the agents, who are looking at him curious, and he starts telling his tale, delighted by his captive audience.

"You see, the McPhees is traditionally considered one of the oldest clans in Scotland. The name is a variant of the name traditionally spelt MacFie, which is until today used by many in this form in Scotland and in several Scottish societies through out the world. There are mentions of MacFie's traditional early sites like the islands of Colonsay and Oronsay being visited by Vikings, back in the eleventh century.

Next historical mention is on the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 with Robert the Bruce. There are several other mentions until they suffered terrible losses on the battle of Culloden, as they fought beside the Camerons, where several of them died. The rest ended up impoverished, and were sent out through to the Americas and Australia during the times of the clearances."

Gibbs stares at his friend, inpatient, "Ducky, her name, please, I don't want to hear a history lesson."

"All in good time, my friend," he opens the old book, and seeks a page where some scribble like words can be seen.

"This record was written by my great-great-great-grandfather, Connor Macfie, during a time of famine he was going through in the village. People were dying with sickness, I believe that it was cholera, by his detailed descriptions of the symptoms, but look at this interesting passage:

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

_"The cold wind wheezed through the cairns, covering the cries of the dying infants who could not bear the terrible plague that has been terrifying the living, who hide under their blankets and pray desperately to God, asking to keep the angel of death away from their loved ones._

_Hope has slowly vanished from the eyes of the families here in the valley. Seven infants had already been sowed by the merciless hands of death, and I've battled night and day to save two other fragile lives._

_My soul is weary, as I see the same signs of sickness spreading through the distances, and I fear that the end might be near."_

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"Ducky, please," Ziva asks impatiently, "her name?"

"Patience, my dear Ziva, now listen to this," he points his finger to another passage, in the following page.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

_"I had neglected to record my trials with ink and paper, but much has changed since my last words here._

_Seventeen days are past since the last time I wailed about my helplessness before death._

_The following morning, a silent figure in a meager horse arrived to our valley, bringing herbs and healing. Her long black hair was like raven feathers, and her hazel eyes were deep pools of wisdom and pain._

_She did not ask questions, she simply rode straight to the house of the weakest children, and offered to prepare something to fortify the child. The mother, desperate to save at least one of her children, accepted, and she had administered her herbs with knowledge and patience, and gave some of her mixed herbs, with strict instructions on how to prepare the tea and the poultice._

_She rode then to the next house where death had claimed many souls, and administered her medicine, again leaving instructions on how to prepare the herbs and to include it in the soup and in the food to be ingested by all in the family._

_Three days later, word spread out through our valley, about a stranger with a gentle touch and soft voice, who brought healing._

_I immediately rode to the place where I had been told I could find her, as the villagers believed that she was a witch or a fairy, which somehow heard their desperate cries and came to rescue them. The village priest felt threatened by this stranger, and ordered her captured._

_But she had somehow eluded all their attempts, but was always there by the glen, waiting for someone to talk to her or to request her aid. She has never said no._

_I arrive at the glen, and find a beautiful woman, something that not even my imagination could not create: she sits placidly on a rock, her white skin is unblemished by marks, her long black hair is softly braided to her side. Her garments are richly sewed, the thick layers protecting her from the cold gales that wheeze through the valley. Her hazel eyes stare placidly at me, unafraid that I might be an envoy from the priest, or maybe a spy._

_"Welcome Connor, have a tea with me."_

_I stare at her for a moment._

_"How do you know my name?"_

_"I know many things about you. Come by the fire and sit, the tea will be ready in a minute."_

_I take the offer of the tea, and notice her gloved hands prepare a small sachet of herbs and mix to the already boiling mix she has on the fire._

_"Who are you?"_

_She lifts her eyes from the boiling pot, and I shiver when her hazel eyes fix in mine, and they change from their natural color to yellow._

_"I'm Kismet."_

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Ducky stops reading, and looks up from the old books to Gibbs, McGee and Ziva, who all are staring at him with surprised faces.

McGee turns his face to look at the sleeping woman silently muttering her name. Gibbs looks from the book in his hands to Ducky, then at the woman, trying to wrap his mind around the idea that the person mentioned in the family book is the same one they have before him, silently sleeping in an ICU bed.

Ziva, well, Ziva was staring at McGee, seeing how fascinated he was by this woman, no creature, and Ducky notices that for some reason she seems… jealous … of his attention to her.

That's certainly a new development that he hadn't foreseen before.

Tony enters the room, followed by Mulder and Scully, who immediately sense something in the air.

"What happened? Is she ok?" hurries Scully to Ducky, who just shakes his head, smiling at his fellow doctor.

"No, we just found out her name."

"Really?" Mulder approaches the bed, and looks at her, who is still asleep. "What is it?"

"Well, it's—" McGee's gasp interrupts Ducky, as he folds himself holding his middle, as if in extreme pain.

"What's wrong?" Ziva touches him, and he looks up at Kismet, who immediately wakes up gasping as well, the machines beeping desperately, reacting to her terror. Scully rushes to her side, and turns off the alarms.

Gibbs looks from McGee to Kismet, and notices her eyes becoming yellow.

"What the hell's wrong?" he shouts, just to receive the only answer he didn't want to hear.

"They're here, Boss," moans McGee, staring at Kismet.

"The Reds found us," says Kismet in a whisper, sitting on the bed uncaring to her wounded back.


	23. Raid equals War

**_Chapter 22: Raid equals War_**

_"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - _**_J.R.R. Tolkien_**

Lieutenant Joshua Burns had received clear instructions: locate the woman under protection of NCIS agents and relocate her to a secure location, where General Stryker could interrogate her regarding her connections to the underworld.

The orders had come signed with all the necessary t's crossed and i's dotted. So he was very pissed off when the chief nurse on duty in her floor refused to guide him to woman, and requested to see all his papers first before allowing him and his men into the ICU. He sighed and presented the papers, which she took her sweet time to look one by one.

"Can you hurry up please, we're in a schedule here, ma'am?" he says in a vain attempt to speed her up, but the nurse, a corpulent woman with bleached blond hair whose name tag read L. Green, patiently took down her glasses from her face, and glared at him.

"Listen, hun, I do what I do when I do it. So if you are in a hurry, it's your business not mine."

She slowly puts her eyeglasses in her face, and slowly peruses the papers to check if it has the necessary signatures.

She double checks everything, clicks something in her computer, while Lieutenant Burns stares at her. He signals to his two men who are with him to be ready to march, when finally stamps the orders, and signs with a flourish the release papers.

"Please follow me."

The soldiers and the lieutenant follow the corpulent woman, and after bending to the right in the corridor, then to the left, they arrive to a secure area. She swipes her electronic card to be granted access, and enters the new corridor.

As she walks to the last room door, she swipes her card again, opening the door.

"She had some visitors with her earlier, they probably are still with her," she says to the lieutenant with a small smile at his scowling face.

Once he passes her, along with his soldiers, she makes a face at him, then starts walking away towards the secure doors.

She is surprised though, when one of the soldiers is thrown out of the room as if he was just a broken doll, hitting the corridor wall with a thump.

She runs to his side, and touches his neck, verifying that he is breathing and alive, but barely.

She walks up to the open door, and she is horrified to see some kind of demon or beast holding the lieutenant by his neck. The lieutenant is struggling to breath: his hands are trying in vain to open the tight claws around his neck, in vain.

"Tell me, human, where is the female?" the beast growls at the lieutenant.

"I don't know," the lieutenant says in a faint whisper, black spots dancing before his eyes.

The demon smells around the lieutenant, and opens his mouth in a sarcastic smile, showing all its yellowed teeth.

"You lie."

The horrified scream of a female human saves the lieutenant life, as the demon's attention turns to the head nurse, whose screams fill the room and the corridor as she leaves the room screaming for the security guards. The demon throws the lieutenant to the floor, and starts pursuing the female human, overstepping the broken body of the dead soldier which was lying on the floor.

The nurse reaches the secure door, and she hits at it in terror, trying to gain the attention of the security guards at the other side. She tries to swipe her card with trembling hands on the magnetic reader, but the demon finally reaches her and grabs her by her neck. He holds her in the air, her feet dancing several feet away from the floor.

The security guards hear her cries, and try desperately to open the door, looking horrified at the scene happening at the other side.

The beast, with red eyes with black circles around it, stares at the nurse. Its scales were red; its fetid breath gave shivers to the nurse, who was whimpering terrified for her life.

"I sense the female's scent on you. Now, where is she?" It speaks to her, but she is terrified and can't put words together to form a sentence.

"I've asked you a question, creature!" It roars, and shakes her violently like a ragdoll.

"I don't… don't …. Know…" she whimpers.

"The female! Her scent is all over you!" It leans its head and smells the human female, "Yes, you touched her."

"I don't know!"

The doors finally are opened, and when the guards storm the corridor, they only find the nurse whimpering at the floor, and no sign of the monster they saw through the door windows.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"Hurry, hurry," Scully rushes down the corridor with the NCIS agents towards the garage.

They board an elevator. They breathe relieved that it goes all the way down without stopping in any floor.

Kismet is being supported between Gibbs and McGee, and somehow she hit with glamour everyone who crossed their path in a way that they didn't even see a bunch of people half-carrying half-dragging a woman in a hospital gown down the corridor.

She was exhausted and faintly shaking with the effort to keep the glamour and track down the hospital invasion at the same time.

They finally reach the last floor, and as soon as they step out of the elevator, Mulder stops his rental before them.

Gibbs opens the backseat door and kindly deposits Kismet on the backseat, and McGee sits on the back with her head on his lap. Ziva runs to the driver's seat, opens the door and orders Mulder out.

"I'm driving."

"But it's my car."

"And I'm Mossad, and you don't want to argue with me about this."

Mulder looks at her for a moment, and hears Gibbs laughing softly.

"You better let her drive, or she might kill you," says McGee from the backseat, his hand running over Kismet's sweaty hair.

Mulder steps out and Ziva immediately takes the driver's seat. Gibbs sits on the passenger seat, leaving thus Mulder, Scully, Tony and Ducky standing outside the car.

Gibbs glances at Ducky, "We'll meet you at your place, Ducky." Ziva steps down on the accelerator, and leaves the garage as if the hounds of hell are after her. This isn't that far from the truth.

"Come on," says Tony, fiddling with his car keys, "we're taking my car."


	24. Frustrated escape

_**Chapter 23: Frustrated escape**_

Ziva is concentrating on driving, and Gibbs turns on his seat to look at McGee with Kismet, who was faintly moaning at each curve and bump Ziva drove through.

"Are you guys ok there?"

McGee nods, but Kismet whimpers.

"Hey?" McGee wipes her tears with his fingers, and she opens her eyes.

"He just killed a human."

McGee lifts his eyes to Gibbs, who frowns at the female and turns to stare at the road they are. Ziva looks through the rearview mirror, and sees Tony's car trying to keep up with her insane driving, zigzagging in the traffic to put as much distance between them and the hospital. There is no way to know how long the glamour would hold.

They take the I-495 W and speed out of Washington DC towards Virginia. They are driving towards Ducky's house, which they all agreed is out of the way and in a green area that they might protect without the danger of any unexpected visitors might be seen by unsuspecting neighbors, just in case some fifteen winged dragon decides to stop by.

They make good time on the highway, thanks to Ziva's psychotic driving and Tony's faithful tailing, they get out of the capitol beltway and reach the intersection of I-495 and I-395.

There, a series of bridges marked the intersection, the roads running one over the other.

Ziva signals that she is going to enter an intersection, and she frowns as she sees something out of normal: two cars ahead simply brake in the exit, as something literally crawls from under the bridge and blocks the road.

Ziva slows down and turns on the blinking lights, and Gibbs looks at Tony's car that stops on Ziva's side. Tony also is staring at that thing, leaning a little bit over the steering wheel and looking up.

Several cars stop as well, as the thing blocks the exit and all drivers simply look up at it.

A huge winged beast with horns and very wicked teeth screeches, making the cars shake and the glass windows shatter. The humans protect their faces as the windows break under the stress of the sound.

Finally, it looks down and kicks one of the cars, sending it flying out of the bridge.

"Give me the female!" it roars, and slowly starts advancing towards the parked cars.

Ziva looks at Tony at the wheel of the other car, hits reverse gear and leaves burning rubber.

She turns the car brusquely, and starts driving into the other direction, away of the incoming beast.

Tony follows her example, turns the car and zigzags between the stopped cars, following the ex-Mossad towards the other side of the bridge.

They would have made it to the other side, if another huge red dragon hadn't landed at the end of the bridge, effectively blocking their escape.

Both Ziva and Tony park the cars, and stare at the beast slowly approaching their position.

"You know, I always imagined that I would die a horrible death, but being eaten by a dragon had never crossed my mind," says Mulder, staring at the approaching beast.

Tony glares at him irritated.

"Well, that wasn't on my plans either."

He sees people leaving their cars and running away from the incoming beast. He also notice that several strange humanoid creatures, with gray skin and black oily hair, are marching in formation in front of the beast, as wall of bodies towards them.

"What the hell is that?"

Scully stares at them, not quite believing what she is seeing.

"I might be mistaken, but they are strangely similar to…" she looks at Mulder, who nods at her, for once speechless. Of all the creatures they expected to be myth, that one was definitely one they expected not to be real.

"Orcs," mutters Tony, unbelieving. "Of all the freaking creatures of mythology and fantasy, Orcs had to be real? You've got to be kidding."

Tony gets out of the car, and soon Mulder and Scully follow his example, leaving Ducky in the car. They glance at Ziva and Gibbs, who also stand out of the car, looking back at the wall of orcs marching towards them with a spiting fire dragon towering over it, and then ahead of them, where another wall of orcs was marching towards them, also with a big angry dragon over them.

"You got to be kidding me," repeats DiNozzo, staring at one of the six feet plus hideous creatures, with sharp teeth and covered with scars with a wicked looking sword in its hand, that separates from the organized lines and starts to advance towards them.

"Don't you hate when the Reds ask the Orcs to do their dirty work?" asks a voice with British accent to Tony's right, suddenly out of nowhere.

"Yeah," answers Tony, who then looks to his right.

He freezes speechless.

Standing right beside him, two feet apart actually, is a tall blue humanoid creature, with two twisted horns on the top of its head and a two point goatee carefully braided with a tiny bow on its points. He was dressed in tight red leather pants, and over his blue hairy chest he had a green vest.

It turns to look at him, and Tony takes an instinctive step back, as its iris are green slits, almost goat like.

With the scare, Tony ends up doing something that up until today, he denies with all forces of his being having done. Even Ziva would forever taunt him about it.

He screams a girly scream, squealing like a banshee.

The creature smiles, showing very sharp white teeth and black gums and screams right back at him, its sound sounding like glass breaking at a very loud decibel.

Tony keeps screaming, and takes a step back against the car gluing his back against the door. The creature keeps screaming back at him, opening its mouth and showing its bifid tongue to him.

Tony remembers suddenly that he is armed, and his hand goes to his gun. He draws it and points it towards the creature. The creature draws out of nowhere two wicked looking scythes and turns to the orc, which now is also screaming and running towards the human and the blue creature.

The blue being runs towards the orc and with a graceful move, slices the orc in half. Once the dead orc is on the floor, it turns to the humans who are staring at him with astonished eyes, and slowly licks the Orc's blood from his scythe.

It smiles at the puny humans, then raises its scythe on its right hand and screams a warrior's cry.

It starts a chain reaction, as immediately several creatures pop out of nowhere around the car with the humans, forming a protective barrier between the cars and the orcs, which start screaming and running towards the humans to attacking them.

"Protect the female! Protect the humans!" the blue being shouts, advancing against the mass of orcs and screaming as his scythes start cutting grey flesh.

It literally starts a war, as dwarves, gryphons and demons start battling against the incoming wall of orcs, keeping them away from the humans, protecting them. As the humans see that, apparently, these creatures are on their side, the humans make the next best thing: they draw their weapons and start giving cover to the beings, shooting down the few orcs that seem to rush past the protective barrier.

"NO! Kill the humans! Give me the female!" The first Red dragon screams, and jumps out of the bridge into the air, but as soon as the Red is on the air it is attacked by a Blue dragon, that tackles it out of the air down the highway below. They both crash on the floor, and attack viciously one another, spitting fire and shoving wicked claws at each other.

The second Red dragon also takes flight, roaring as it is in the air, just to be tackled by a Golden Dragon, and both dragons go spinning out of control to the ground. Once there, the Golden dragon buttheads the Red in the chest, sending it against the columns that sustain the highway, shaking the whole bridge with the impact.

McGee gets out of the car, and shouts for Ducky's help. Both together get Kismet's out of it, and under the cover of the fight between the two cars. She is shivering in her thin hospital gown, so Ducky gives her jacket.

"Here, my dear," she puts it on with his help, careful of her wounded back, looking scared at the fight happening just a couple of feet away.

"You should let them have me, I don't want you to get hurt because of me."

"Hey," McGee takes her chin on his hand, and forces her to look at him, "we're not giving up on you, ok?"

She looks into his eyes for a moment, and he stares her down until she nods.

Ziva and Scully reload their weapons, and keep shooting down the orcs, which seem more like cockroaches as they spread out on the road. Ziva sees a small dwarf in difficulties, and hurries to his side, getting one of her several knifes and throwing it at an orc's throat, killing him immediately. The dwarf finishes his opponent with a swing of his axe, then looks up at the female woman, who comes to the orc collect her knife.

"That was an impressive move, my lady," Remki, the dwarf says, looking at the female warrior. "But when you are killing orcs," he swings his axe, and kills another incoming orc, with a practiced move, "hitting their necks is good, but it is better when" he attacks another orc, this time, hitting it between its legs. He twists the axe, and the orc falls to the floor, dead, "you aim to his private bits, as they are very sensitive there, you see?"

Ziva looks down at the dead orc, then at the dwarf who is giving her lessons on how to kill mythological creatures.

"Thanks for the heads up. I will remember that." She aims her gun and shoots another incoming orc between his legs, and he falls as a log to the floor. "Nice."

"My lady," Remki approaches her, and Ziva really has to look down to see his face, "would you give me the pleasure and honor of fighting by my side, sending some of these beastly things back to the pit, where they should never have left?"

Ziva smiles at him, "the honor would be mine."

Remki smiles at the warrior human, swings his axe and screams, charging against the incoming orcs. Ziva laughs, and follows him into the middle of the fight.

"SCULLY!" Mulder shouts, as a small beast jumps over the protective barrier and tackles her to the floor, biting her on her shoulder. She screams in pain at the attack, and immediately points her gun to the beast and empties her gun on its head.

Mulder rushes to her side, and he is horrified at the bleeding bite on her shoulder. He gets his jacket and presses against her wounded shoulder, receiving a hiss in return from her as she closes her eyes in pain.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"No, he caught me by surprise, just that."

"Can you stand up?"

"Yeah." He puts an arm around her shoulders, and helps her up, supporting her against the car.

Two black skinned demons, their heads decorated with three twisted horns, approach the humans.

"We have to leave the bridge and any cemented ground, and go to green areas. We can teleport from there! Move!"

Gibbs nods, and walks around the car, gives his gun to McGee and takes Kismet in his arms.

McGee and Ducky then follow him as he starts half running, half jogging away from the cars, following the three horned demons, as they lead the humans out of the bridge. The other creatures, as they see the female escaping, intensify their fight: the orcs try harder to break the protective barrier while the gryphons, dwarves and demons keep them at bay. Mulder helps Scully, and half drags her after Gibbs and the others.

"Ziva!" shouts Tony, looking at his partner shooting down and killing orcs left and right, beside a small dwarf, "we're leaving!"

Remki looks at the female warrior, who is killing orcs with a smile on her face, "you may go, my lady, I'll take from here."

She looks down at him, and nods, and kills another one with a practiced move of her knife, slicing his neck, before running after Tony.

The FBI agents and the NCIS agents are running towards the end of the bridge, and they look horrified to the left where the Red is still fighting against Blue dragon. The Red takes flight, and the Blue roars and follows the Red in fury.

They keep running, following the two demons, and freeze when a huge pawn with claws breaks through the cement, and the other Red dragon crawls from under the highway. It wheezes in pain, but its red eyes fix on the humans, its fury at their interference making him shake.

"Give me the female!" it shouts, and stretches its hands towards Gibbs, who is holding her in his arms.

"Really, Stryker, gimme this, gimme that. Didn't your mother teach you how to ask nicely?" asks a small man in a green suit, who appears right under the Red dragon.

The Red looks down at the small man, and roars in pain as he lifts a small stone in his hand, which shines a warm blood red color. It takes a step back and falls off the bridge.

"Trink! Right on time!" shouts one of the demons.

"Well, I like making big entries," says Trink, the elf. He waves his hand, signaling that they have to follow him.

He walks towards the end of the bridge, and the demons and the humans follow him.

However, one small orc had rushed past the barrier, and jumps over the parked cars towards the humans.

"Gibbs, watch out!" screams Ziva, as the orc jumps from a parked car and does a flip on the air, landing on his shoulder and punching him on the face.

He loses his balance and stumbles, which was more than enough for the creature grab Kismet by her hair and start dragging her away from the humans. Mulder, McGee and Tony try kicking the small beast away from Kismet, but it is fast, and refuses to let go of his hold on Kismet's hair, who was screaming in pain as her wounded back drags slowly by the cement floor.

McGee finally draws his weapon and shoots the thing down, being followed by Scully and Ziva, who also empty their weapons on the thing. Once it's not moving anymore, he kneels by Kismet, who was sobbing in pain.

"Hey," he gets her arms away from her face, and sees her terrified face with tear tracks, "we got you, ok?"

She whimpers, and nods. He then looks at Mulder, who helps him get her up, and she hisses as he touches her back, which is bleeding again.

"Come on, we have to go," says Mulder, holding her by her arm and slowly guiding her away.

However, three orcs are able to pass the barricade, and even though Remki and the blue demon rush after them, they attack the humans, and in the middle of the struggle McGee pushes Kismet behind himself. She rushes to the guardrail of the bridge, and looks down at the several meters high fall.

She looks back at the fight, and at McGee struggling against one orc with Tony with his gun on its side, pulling the trigger repeatedly trying to release its hold on McGee.

Gibbs, despite his bleeding face, was punching and being punched by another creature, and the Blue demon helping him on the hand-to-hand fight. Ziva was helping Scully who was shooting down a snarling orc. Ducky seemed lost between them, and starts walking towards her, but she screams as she sees one small orc jumping from behind a car towards the gentle doctor.

"NO," she shouts and Ducky turns, receiving the full brunt of the creature attack on his chest. He loses his balance and stumbles, exactly when Kismet is behind him.

He screams in pain as its claws slash his chest, but he is horrified in hearing Kismet's desperate scream, as she loses her balance against the guardrail and falls over it.

"JETRO!"

Gibbs hears the desperate shout from Ducky, and leaves the orc to the blue dancing demon, and kicks the disgusting beast from Ducky's chest and shoots it down three times.

"Are you ok?"

"My goodness, Kismet!"

He struggles to stand up, and Gibbs looks around, not seeing the female Alpha anywhere.

"Where did she go?"

Ducky turns terrified eyes to him, and rushes to the guardrail. His action freezes the blood running in Gibbs' veins, and he also rushes to the edge of the bridge and looks down.

There, hanging by her hold in a contorted spike of metal out of the bridge, was Kismet, struggling not to let go.

"Hold on in there, kid, I'm going to get you."

He takes his jacket off and starts taking his belt off, and shouts for DiNozzo.

"Please," she murmurs, her hold weakening, as she is using her right arm, and it is pulling her stitches on her back.

DiNozzo and McGee finish off their own orc, and run to Gibbs.

"Oh, shit, how are we going to get her?"

"Give me your belt, DiNozzo. You too, McGee."

Gibbs makes an improvised rope with the three belts braided one in the other. He hands one point to Tony, "Hold this tight, don't let go," and leans over the guardrail, holding onto the rope and stretching his arm to Kismet.

"Come on, kid, take my hand."

"I can't!"

"Of course you can, just let go and grab my hand!"

She looks at his hand, just a few inches up from her own. She uses both hands on the spike, and tries to grab his hand. She fails the first time.

"Almost there, you can do it."

She tries again. Gibbs frowns as her fingers touch his hand, but they can't get a good grasp. She stares at his hand for a moment, then uses all her remaining strength to pull herself up and finally she stretches her right hand up enough so Gibbs can hold her by her wrist.

"Good girl, I got you know."

He groans as he feels the muscles on his back and his arm complaining about her added weight, but he ignores it as he forces himself to pull her up from her dangling position from the bridge.

He fells Tony and Tim pulling him up, finally grabbing is other arm and pulling him back to the road.

"Almost there, kid."

His heart constricts as he sees her grimace of pain, as her back must surely be hurting like hell.

"Almost –"

The bridge shakes, and she screams as her grasp falters. Gibbs tries desperately to hold on, but she slides down, and now he is holding her by her hand, and her sweaty palm is slowly escaping his fingers.

"Don't let go, kid."

She sobs, looking at him in the eyes. "I'm sorry."

He still tries to hold onto her fingers, but finally, her hand slides down, and she falls.


	25. Wasn't she the last one?

**Chapter 24: Wasn't she the last one?**

_**When the world says, "Give up,"**  
**Hope whispers, "Try it one more time."**  
**~Author Unknown**  
_  
Mulder and McGee scream as they see Kismet's grasp in Gibbs' hand falter, and look in despair as she starts falling towards the ground several feet below. Gibbs watches her fall, as a blow by blow video in his mind, taking an eternity until she will crash against the ground but only some seconds really.

There is a rumor of wings and before she crashes on the ground a green winged beast flies bellow her, grabbing her midflight in its frontal paws and holding her against the green scales of its chest. It moves its wings and flips on the air, holding her firmly within its grasp, and does a turn in the air and slowly flies towards the humans.

Tony grabs Gibbs and brings him back to the bridge, away from the guardrail. Ziva, Scully, Ducky, McGee and Tony and Gibbs all stare at the huge Green dragon landing softly on the bridge, holding with care the bleeding female in its front paws.

Its yellow eyes look at the humans for a moment, and at the fragile broken female in its claws. It lowers her almost reverently to the cement. As soon as she lies on the floor, it runs its head up and down on her, inhaling her scent, its green leathery wings shivering with pleasure as he inhales the sweet scent of a fertile female.

It raises its head and looks at the humans, who are staring at it with surprised faces. It is an exact copy of the dragon from the bullpen, but it is definitely bigger and male. It shivers and suddenly it is surrounded by a green mist. When the green mist collapses, the NCIS and FBI agents see a tall blond man, his muscular arms very defined, and a face chiseled as if by an artisan.

He kneels before the bleeding female, and reverently holds her in his arms. He traces her features with callused fingers, tracing her eyebrows, her nose and her lips, looking at her as if he could not believe she existed.

"Didn't she say that she was the last one?" mutters Tony as he sees the blond man kneeling before the female.

Ducky takes a step closer, and sees that the blond man is struggling to hold his tears in check.

"I believe she was mistaken."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Ravlir holds the last female Green Alpha in his hands and he shivers, as his centuries old search is finally over. He runs his fingers over her features, trying to memorize them by touch. He feels tears of relief simmering in his eyes, as now his heart fills with hope, hope for the future, and hope for his clan.

The more alphas a clan has in its ranks, the more power it yields. The Green clan had been hunted down and almost extinct, and for centuries only some cells survived. The Reds, in their quest for power, either killed or kidnapped the beta females, using them as breeders of their soldiers.

The green beta males, desperate, sought Ravlir out, the last Green Alpha, who organized resistance fronts, and raided the enemy's camps in search of any females who were prisoners.

Regardless of their origin, if she was Golden, Blue or Turquoise, Ravlir and his men rescued the females and brought them to the sanctuary.

There, the females could heal, and finally be reunited with their rightful clans if they wished to. But in none of his raids he had been able to find a green Alpha. He had been tempted and teased by her existence, but his quest had been fruitless.

Until now when he holds his future mate in his arms for the first time.

She shivers in his arms, blinks and for a moment their eyes meet. Hazel eyes look into hazel eyes, and Ravlir can see her frown as she can't figure out who he is.

"You …" she murmurs, lifting one of her trembling hands towards his face.

He closes his eyes and leans his head towards her hand, but she is too weak and loses consciousness before touching him. He opens his eyes and looks at her, and his pain at the injustice of the situation is too much.

He screams like a wounded animal, his pain and despair so deep that the fighting creatures stop for a moment, all to look at the Green Alpha howling to the heavens.

He hugs her against his chest, and feels sobs threatening to overtake him. He feels wetness on her back and takes his hand away from it, and frowns as he sees her life giving blood on his hands.

He takes a deep breath, puts his arms under her fragile form and stands up, and starts walking towards the humans who are just a few feet away from him.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Gibbs takes a step forward, when the muscular man stands up with Kismet in his arms, and starts walking towards them. They hear in the background the fight heating up again, but their attention is focused on the man walking towards them.

His chiseled face leaves Kismet's and his hazel eyes focus on Gibbs. The same hazel eyes he'd seen in Kismet are looking back at him from this man's face. He walks until he is before Gibbs, stares him down, as he is taller then Gibbs for a few inches.

He looks at the other humans, some wounded, and some not, all tired of the fight trying to protect the female. Gibbs sees him looking down at her again, his eyes becoming soft as he studies her features.

He takes another step and stretches his arms, and Gibbs stretches his and takes Kismet from his arms. The muscular giant lowers his arms with care, and lifts one of his hands to run his finger over her cheek, leaving a mark of blood on it.

"Please protect her for me," he says in a deep baritone voice, still looking at her face.

A roar is heard, and he looks up to the right, where the Golden loses the battle with the Red, and flies away wounded. The Red turns in his flight and start flying towards the humans.

"Go," he orders, and starts walking towards incoming Red.

The blue dancing demon stops him, his hand on his shoulder, "Ravlir, you found the female. Let's retreat."

Another green dragon, this one quite smaller then Ravlir's dragon form, lands close to the humans.

"Scorn is right, Ravlir. We have what we came for. Don't do something stupid just in your eagerness to protect your pride."

Ravlir looks at the other dragon, then at the humans, who are all looking at him. And for the first time in a long while, he smiles, his features changing to one with boyish charm.

"I won't do anything stupid," he points to the bleeding female in Gibbs arms, "I have too much to live for."

"Sarin, take the humans to safety. Scorn, lead the way." He starts running towards the edge of the bridge.

Scorn, the blue dancing demon, nods at the order and looks at the humans, who are frozen waiting for directions.

"Protect the female! Protect the humans!" he roars, and starts running towards the end of the bridge again. The smaller green dragon takes flight and circles around the humans, acting as huge wall between the fighting orcs and creatures and the fleeing humans, who are now following the blue demon again.

Mulder and Scully still looks at the side and see Ravlir the human jumping out of the bridge, disappearing from view. Scully gasps but her eyes become huge when a huge green dragon come flying from under the bridge and clashes with the incoming Red, their roars filling the air.

"Give me the female, Ravlir!"

"She's not yours to take, Stryker!"

"Stryker?" asks DiNozzo, glancing back at the Red Dragon fighting with the Green one. "That's Stryker, as in General Stryker?"

The small man in green suit runs to him, and grabs his hand, and starts dragging him in an astonishing speed, specially considering his short legs.

"Very, very wicked beast. Not a pleasant chap to share a pint, you see?"

Another roar fills the air, and the humans flinch.

"Come on," shouts Scorn, as soon as they reach the end of the bridge. They keep running towards a green area, and suddenly a Golden Dragon and a Blue dragon land before them in the grass. The humans freeze, unsure of their intentions, but both bow and open their majestic wings. They touch the wings one of the other, creating a roof like area where the humans can hide themselves.

Trink runs to stand under the wings of the Golden, and waves to the others to do the same.

Once all humans, Trink and Scorn are under the dragons wings, they lower their wings, and disappear.


	26. Into the dragon's lair

_**Chapter 25: Into the dragon's lair**  
_

It was just but a second. One moment they were standing on the grass field just out of the intersection of the I-395, the next they were standing in a dark room with just some faint indirect light.

The light becomes brighter and they see the small elf Trink pointing a small red stone to the torches strategically posted in the niches on the walls. The fire would start and illuminate that section, reflecting on the amethyst geodes strategically scattered around the stone polished walls.

The Golden and Blue dragons bow to the humans and disappear. The blue dancing demon smiles saucily, bows and disappears as well. A few seconds later, the green dragon named Sarin appears, and rushes to Gibbs.

"Oh, poor hatchling, may I?" he stretches his front paws to Gibbs, asking him trust the bleeding female in his care.

Gibbs reluctantly does so, and Sarin purrs as he holds her in his arms.

"Please follow me."

He turns and starts walking in the cave towards an opening in the back. The humans follow him, and see that they are in a very complex set of caverns, each opening in the wall leading to a different room. They walk by a kitchen, a library, game room, a study with several wicked looking swords and armors, and finally they reach a wooden round door.

Sarin pushes it, and marches towards the huge four poster bed, with thick clan tartans hanging as curtains in green and red. The linens were soft Egyptian white cotton, which Sarin delicately moves out of the way to gently deposit the female between the pillows.

Scully rushes to the bed with difficulty, as her shoulder is aching due to the orc's bite, and Ducky, also wounded by orc's claws, approaches the bed to look at the type of care administered by a dragon to another of his own race.

"Are you healers?"

Sarin looks at the two curious humans, who nod. He stretches his arm and delicately takes Scully in his hand, and deposits her in the soft bed. He does the same with Ducky. Both humans rush to Kismet's side, and are dismayed at the damage on her back. She has asphalt burns from when the orc dragged her by her hair, and her points had all ripped, leaving her wound weeping blood onto the white linens.

"We must take a look at that shoulder, my lady. Orc bites tend to become infected if not properly cleaned. Same thing for your scratches, my lord."

Scully looks from Kismet to Sarin, who is looking at her wounded shoulder. "I would appreciate if you showed us how you treat such wounds, if you may."

"Gladly, but first, we have to treat Ravlir's mate."

Ducky kneels beside the female, and he is sad to see her so broken again. She was so much better at the hospital.

"Ravlir is the other one? The other Green one?"

Sarin nods at the redheaded human, and delicately rips the hospital gown, leaving Kismet naked. He starts poking at her back, and opens the drawer of one bedside table, looking for something in there.

"Ravlir is the last male Green Alpha, as this little one here is the last female Green Alpha. By rights and tradition, they are a pair. Unfortunately fate and constant interference of the Reds kept them apart. That is, until now."

He picks some herbs, some kind of oils, and starts mixing them, in exact measures, using a small wooden spatula to get a good texture. He closes one of his narines and breathes fire from the other one, burning the mixture. It starts releasing a sweet scent like mint, aloe and other herbs, and when it was warm and thick enough, Sarin leans towards the female's back and slowly pours the warm mix on her bleeding wound.

Both Scully and Ducky stare fascinated as her gaping wound reacts to the mix: the bruised skin heals from within, the purple marks fading slowly, and the bleeding gaping wound where the points had ruptured starts to have some kind of light shining from within, and slowly starts to seal itself, leaving unblemished skin behind.

Scully looks at the wound then at the pot with the poultice in the big dragon's hand, then at the unmarked back of the female before her, where all traces of her bruises disappeared in a few seconds.

"What is that, and does it work in humans?" She asks, immediately imagining the amazing applications of the poultice in medicine, and the repercussions on the medical world if something like that could be widely used.

Sarin runs a clawed hand over the sweaty curls of Kismet, and looks at the female human.

"This is a special mix of normal herbs, some that has been in use by your kind for thousand years. The only small addition to it is dragon root that is able to sweep the healing powers of the dragon and use it into the human counterpart. It can be used in humans, but its effect won't be so fast or as efficient, as it would merely act as a painkiller and a long spectrum antibiotic. Here, let me use some in your wound."

Sarin stretches the pot with the poultice to Scully, who tests the temperature with the tip of her fingers, smells it, and even tastes a little in her tongue.

Mulder stares at Scully as she does all that, and she looks at him with a faint smile on her face, examining the texture of the cream in her hand.

"So, what's your verdict?"

"It's aloe, mint, chamomile and some other herbs I can't identify without a mass spectrogram, all well known by their homeopathic and therapeutic properties, the equivalent of a Granny's homemade medicine for scrapped knees."

She takes a bigger portion of the poultice, and delicately tries to lower her shirt. Ducky goes to her rescue, and delicately undoes her buttons.

"Allow me, my dear," and lowers her shirt on one shoulder, and grimaces at the red angry marks on her white skin, some already showing signs of infection.

Scully rubs then the poultice against her own shoulder, and hisses as the warm mix starts reacting with the open wound.

Mulder jumps and straddles the big dragon bed, and crawls to Scully's side. He frowns as he sees her wound, as it looks worst than he had imagined. Ducky gets more of the poultice and spreads over her back too, moving the bra aside so he can cover the weeping sore on her shoulder better.

"You should have told me it was that bad," mutters Mulder, as Scully keeps her eyes closed as Ducky spreads the warm cream against the burning wound.

"Would it make any difference? I thought we were going to die, anyway."

"Do you have clean cloths so I can bandage this?" asks Ducky to Sarin, who nods and leaves the bed, going to a big wardrobe in the corner.

Ducky looks back at Scully, who opened her blue eyes and was looking at her own shoulder, covered with the poultice.

"Does it hurt?"

"Believe it or not, no it doesn't. I was in considerable pain before, but now I just feel a certain tingling sensation on the skin and some warmth, but no pain."

"It's the effect of the calming properties of the herbs," says Sarin, bringing some clean ripped linen to Ducky, who immediately starts bandaging Scully's shoulder. "It is advisable if you look for one of your own healers, as it heals skin and flesh only; if some bone has been damaged your doctors should take a look."

Scully then proceeds to do the same at Ducky, covering his scratches with the poultice. Gibbs, McGee, Ziva and Tony were standing just beside the big dragon bed, looking at the careful way that Sarin treated Scully, Ducky and Kismet.

"What about her?" Tony points to the unconscious female Alpha.

Sarin turns his yellow eyes to the white haired man and his teammates, that Ravlir had deposited his mate into his care.

"As I said, the poultice heals skin and flesh; unfortunately it doesn't substitute lost blood as well. She is very weak, so she will probably sleep for some hours."

Trink appears at the door, and knocks on the wood.

"Just found some good cask of two-hundred-year old wine, let's drink until Rav comes home."

He disappears before he gets any answer, rushing to his next pint. Sarin rolls his eyes at the drunken elf, and puts some pillows around Kismet, delicately covering her with some linen.

"Let's go before he finishes with all Rav's wine."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

They leave the female in Rav's bed, and go back down the corridor until they reach an opening that leads to what they believe to be a kitchen. Several fruit baskets are filled to the brim with gorgeous mature fruits, and Trink is already pouring wine in several wine glasses.

As soon as the humans enter, he trusts wine glasses in their hands, eager to have someone new to share a pint.

"We're on duty, we shouldn't –" says McGee, trying to refuse the drink from the short elf, just to face his snarling face.

"Listen kid, I was almost killed today. You were almost killed today. My last cup almost had been the very last cup, so I want celebrate being alive," he pushes the drink back into McGee's hand, "being drunk alone is no fun, so do me a favor and get drunk with me."

He turns around, and marches back to the table, and pours more wine for himself and takes the whole glass in only one swig.

"That's Trink for you," says Sarin softly, hovering over McGee's shoulder.

The Green dragon stalks into the kitchen, and gets several chairs. He gives them to the humans, so they may sit in a semi circle.

"I believe we deserve an explanation," says Gibbs, sipping the delicious two hundred year old wine Trink gave him.

Sarin sighs, and stuffs his nozzle in the rich port wine, taking a deep drink.

"Yes, I believe you do. But I have to start from the beginning. So, once upon a time, …"


	27. Ravlir's tale

_**Chapter 26: ****Ravlir's tale**  
_  
"Ages ago, the skies were ours. We ruled the air and silently watched the eras go by, the earth change, and new types of creatures come and go from existence. Humans then came and started multiplying, and the skies we were allowed to fly free diminished.

Curious about this new creature, we searched the Elementals and asked for a chance to interact with them. Despite their warnings, we insisted, and we finally were granted our wish.

The price for our insistence was high, as our line, once touched by the fragility and struggles of mortality were also dominated by their darkest emotions.

Greed.

Rage.

Anger.

Envy.

We were slowly corrupted from within. Clan rose against clan, killing innocents and raiding in search of females gifted with magic, to increase their own power and their own lines. And with the centuries, our numbers diminished, our families went into hiding and our future seemed dark.

Each Clan has specific powers, being responsible to keep one side of the balance between the others. The Greens were the keepers of time and knowledge; the Reds of conquest and victory; the Blues controlled the elements of nature, along with Turquoise, who ruled the seas and everything beneath the water. The Golden were artisans, controlling fire and its applications: welding, building and sword making. We also had the Blacks and Grays, but those two clans are extinct now."

"How did they become extinct?" asks Scully, taking a sip from her wine, her shoulder in a makeshift bandage.

Sarin sighs and looks at his dark red wine, "The Clan life and power runs through their Alphas. The more Alphas a clan has, the more power they have above the elements they control. Unfortunately, the Reds decided that they were the only ones who had the right to have Alphas, and systematically stolen the female Alpha's from the other clans. You see, only a female Alpha may conceive another female Alpha, to keep the line alive. All the other females, which we call female Betas, they conceive both female betas and male betas, and they also may sometimes conceive males Alpha."

"So it would be stealing a queen bee from a hive," says Mulder, staring into Sarin. "If you steal the female Alpha, you basically kills that line, as any Alpha male that might be born will not have any future female Alpha as pair."

"Can't a male Alpha take a female beta?" asks Gibbs to Sarin, who shakes his head.

"He can, but it would considered below his position. His magic would be diluted into the next generation, not stronger. So, when the Reds started to have an abundance of Alpha males being born on their ranks, they decided to raid the other clans to ensure their own Alphas would have pairs. Thus, letting the other clans in a desperate situation and leading the Blacks and the Greys into extinction."

"What about the other one, Rav…" McGee tries to remember the name, but he can't pronounce it.

"Ravlir," says Sarin, who stretches his arm with the pint to Trink who fills it again with more wine.

"Ravlir's story is not so different from his clan. He was hatched in a time that the Greens were already in desperate situation, as there only two Alphas alive, and the female one had been stolen by a Golden Alpha. The male Green fought desperately with the Golden, but he was never able to retrieve his female. As Ravlir grew up in strength and in power, he saw the despair of the Alpha male as he slowly lingered between the clans, trying to gather soldiers to fight beside him to free the female. He did not succeed, and when word came that the Golden killed the female Green as she gave birth a dead alpha, he simply gave up and curled up in a top of a mountain, and died."

"Ravlir then promised that he would never give up on his clan, despite the fact that he would be the last of his line. He succeeded where his predecessor failed, and arranged successful raids in the enemies' camps, stealing female prisoners regardless of the clan. He created a sanctuary where the wounded females could heal, and became a legend among the other creatures, as regardless of the hopelessness of the situation they could find in him an ally to battle."

Trink turns his own pint and nods at the humans, "That's true. He helped to rescue Coralien, the witch, from the undead world, and he is the one who introduced her to the Lycan King, who enamored himself with her and now they are living in some castle in Denmark. And he also helped the Amazons during the hunting days, to which up until today he is very welcome in their wacky house in New Orleans."

"The Amazons have a house in New Orleans?" asks Tony, staring at the small elf, which fills his own pint again with wine and takes a long sip before answering.

"Of course, where do you think all those crazy voodoo myths come from?"

"So what is his connection to the young lady who now sleeps in his bed?" asks Ducky, trying to go back to the young female they had saved.

"She is a miracle by definition. Ravlir had gotten used to the idea that he was the last of the line, until rumors of a lost Green Alpha living among the humans started to spread out. Ravlir and all other Alphas in different clans started then a desperate race to find her, but it seemed that the more he sought her out deeper she hid herself out, and he started to despair, for the first time in centuries."

Sarin looks at the humans who are listening to his tale and sighs, "You see, by right and definition, she is Ravlir's mate. He will protect her and cherish her with all the strength of his body and his soul, and all his allies will rise to defend her as well. But only their union and subsequent conception of new alphas might heal the Green clan, which today is on the brink of extinction. If she doesn't accept him," Sarin looks forlornly at his own pint, which is now empty, "we're as good as dead."


	28. Home is where the heart is

_**Chapter 27: Home is where the heart is**_

The humans remain silent after the ominous declaration by the old green dragon, who stares sadly into his own empty pint.

There is a rumor of wings in the main room, and finally they hear heavy boots coming towards the kitchen. A few seconds later, the tall blond they saw at the bridge strolls into the room. He nods briefly at the humans, and goes directly to Trink, who had already poured some rich port into a wineglass and had it ready for the thirsty dragon.

Ravlir takes two deep gulps of the drink and turns to look at the humans. His hazel eyes study each one for a moment, not missing anything from their clothes or their wounds. He particularly pays attention to Mulder, McGee, finally settling his eyes on Gibbs.

Both men stare at each other for a long moment, one measuring the other up. Gibbs, as he is not willing to wait for the proper introductions to be made, stands up and walks up to the Green Leader.

"Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs, NCIS."

The tall blond looks down at the outstretched hand, then at Gibbs and smirks. He takes the offered hand and shakes it firmly, and Gibbs can feel the barely restrained strength in the fingers squeezing his hand.

"Ravlir Green, Last Alpha from the Green Clan. In name of my clan, I thank you for protecting my future mate, the lost Alpha Female."

"You're welcome. These are the agents from my team, Agents McGee, David and DiNozzo, our M.E. Dr. Donald Mallard, and those two over there they are FBI Agents Scully and Mulder."

Ravlir runs his eyes over the bandages on Scully and Ducky, the scratches on Timothy's and Tony's faces and grimaces a little, finally taking in the blackening eye on Gibbs' face.

"I'm sorry for dragging you all into our own feud war. By law, humans should not be used as cannon fodder in our battles, however the Reds have become ruthless in their quest for power, not respecting the High Council requests of cease fire between the clans. Humans, who have been exposed to us, usually have their memories erased to make it look like all this never happened. My crew stayed behind in at the bridge to fix the interchange up? and try to salvage the damage done by our combat. I don't know how many of your people were exposed to us, but I can guarantee you that, as soon as she has settled down on my clan, we can erase the memory of meeting her and us from your minds, if that is your wish."

"I'm uncomfortable with the idea of someone messing around in my head."

Rav nods, and stares at his pint, "I completely understand, but there are some people who simply can't handle such secrets. So the offer is still standing if later on you chose to live unaware of our world."

"Can't this High Council of yours do anything about them? Punish them for interfering with the other clans, putting difficulties in their way somehow?"

Rav takes another sip of his wine and looks at the brown haired FBI agent, who has a simmering power signature he recognizes.

"They've tried. But, you see: the Reds for the last couple of centuries decided to strike out at the very life and soul of the clans - their female alphas. They also organized campaigns of assassination against the council members, and most of the Alphas that were there before, are no more. Their clans almost decimated to only a small percentage of what they were. The few who are still alive are only old decrepit fools, talking about their faded glory and their past achievements."

Rav finishes his wine, and excuses himself, walking towards the door.

"Where is she?" He demands.

"In your room, but she is asleep. Her wounds were deep and she lost a lot of blood. She won't wake up for a couple of hours yet," says Sarin, which promptly stops Rav in his tracks.

"I know, I've seen her wounds."

Rav stares down to his own hands, and then to his clothes, which still carry the remainders of the battle fought on the highway.

"That young lady is a fighter," says Ducky, standing up from his chair and walking towards Rav.

"For centuries, she has always been able to keep a step ahead of the hunters who were after her, and still she took time to help the humans. One of my forefathers registered her acts of kindness, which I'll be forever grateful, and she also saved the life of one of our agents," he points to McGee, who nods to Ravlir, "taking the chance of exposing herself to us and being wounded for that."

"How badly hurt was her dragon?"

"Deep laceration wounds from claws on the upper chest, and a very ugly piece of glass stuck from her side. Said wounds were treated by me, and I saw them heal, as if by magic. However, her little dragon form did not regain consciousness after that. Shortly after, after an unpleasant attack in our autopsy she changed into her human form, and for a moment there we thought we had lost her."

Scully tries to stand up from her chair, and she is promptly helped by Mulder, who supports her by her good arm.

"That's not your only concern. There are the psychological aspects of her fleeing the Reds as well."

Rav looks at her confused, and Mulder rushes to explain Kismet's state of mind.

"She has been living in hiding for most of her life. All her interactions for the last couple of centuries were ruled by the fear that one of the Reds, or any other unfriendly Alpha, might expose her location to the hunters."

"But her time of hiding is over. I'll protect her with my life."

"You don't understand. She will be terrified of you."

"Why?" Rav looks horrified at Mulder, then glances at Gibbs who silently nods in agreement. "I would never hurt her. I'd rather cut a piece of my own flesh than bring her harm."

It's McGee's turn to stand up and start pacing the room, and he glances at the male dragon with pity.  
"Well, _we_ know that now, but _she_ doesn't. She doesn't know you."

Scully nods, "She's terrified of the males of your race."

"She broke into tears when I simply held her hand. She hasn't touched another living being for over 700 hundred years," says Mulder, "she won't accept you so easily, and simply jump into your arms just because you say that you are her future mate. She will bolt, for sure, and if she runs, you will have a lot of trouble to be able to catch up with her again."

"I would never hurt her."

"I see that lad, but she doesn't know that yet. You have to be careful, show your appreciation to her, and thread carefully." Says Ducky to Ravlir, who is staring down the corridor that leads to the bedrooms.

Sarin nods in agreement with the interpretation of the facts exposed by the humans, "The humans are right, you know. Rav, she won't take you as a mate if she is forced to it."

"And…" Ravlir blushes as he looks at Ducky and Sarin, who becomes curious about the Green male's insecurity, "is she untouched?"

Ducky frowns at the question, but Sarin smiles, knowing exactly what he is asking about.

"She is untouched. There is no male scent on her skin and her scent is as pure as spring waters. Also, she is fertile, which is probably the reason why the Reds were able to pinpoint the humans who touched her just by her scent."

"Hey, but you're not planning to…" McGee stands up and sputters, staring at the tall blond, who, he knows, can become a huge dragon and crack all his bones in just one flick of his wrist.

Ravlir looks at the tall human, which his female Alpha risked her life to save and sighs.

"For centuries, my clan had to live without hope, as there were no more Alpha females to ensure the continuity of our line. Now, my clan might have a chance of being strong again. Rest assured, I won't harm her, but I can't let the only chance, of my clan having a future, escape between my fingers."

"If you take from her what should be freely given, you are no better than the Reds you fight against," says Mulder.

"What's your plan, then?" says Tony, looking the tall blond up and down.

"What do you mean, '_plan'_? I'm going in there, wait for her to wake up and explain the facts. She will understand."

Ziva shakes her head and glances at Scully, who stares at the male dragon as if he had grown a second head.

"That's it?"

"Yeah, what's the problem with that?"

Tony snickers, and glances at Sarin and Trink, who are trying very hard to keep from laughing.

"It doesn't surprise me that you guys are almost extinct." Ziva shakes her head sadly at the Alpha.

"What?"

Trink can't hold back anymore, and starts laughing hysterically, "Kid, you're in trouble. That's definitely not the way to woo a female."

"Facts are the last thing she will want to know," says Sarin, chortling on his pint.

Rav looks from his two friends to the humans, who are all looking at him with a mix of mirth – by Tony's, Mulder's and Tim's side – and fury – from Ziva's and Scully's side.

"What's so wrong with that?"

"What's _wrong_?" Scully takes some steps, furious at the insensitive male jerk before her, and he senses this human female might deck him if she thinks it necessary. Apparently, gender blindness happens regardless of the species.

"She is terrified of males of your race. She's been living in hiding for centuries, and you simply expect her to jump into your arms and say thanks for appearing into her life."

Rav gulps at the furious red head, and looks up at her partner, who just folds his arms and smiles at the male alpha. "Don't look at me. She is right."

"What do you think I should do then?"

Tony smiles and walks towards the male Alpha, putting a hand on his shoulder, and guides him towards one of the chairs, forcing him to sit on it.

"Just do your usual stuff. You know: roses, chocolate, how nice you look tonight, how good you smell. This type of stuff."

Rav just looks confused from Tony to Gibbs, who studies the male Alpha for a moment.

"What is he talking about?"

"Rav, come on, man. Just be your charming self," says Tony, who brings a chair in front of Rav and sits straddling it. Rav just looks confused at the smiling NCIS agent.

Gibbs shakes his head, once he finally figures out the problem.

"Ravlir, have you ever been with a female before?"

"Ah, come on, Boss, look at him, what type of girl wouldn't …" Tony looks at Rav's face, who is looking at him with very serious eyes. "Oh, man, you're kidding, right? You have to be kidding. Haven't you ever –"

"Taking a Green beta would be like stealing the future mate of one of my clan and family. Taking an Alpha of another clan would be the equivalent of doing the same thing to her clan that the Reds had done to mine. So I chose to live alone rather than to subject an innocent to the same pain that I dreaded my mate could go through."

The silence after Rav's words was deafening. The humans all stared at the male Alpha, who looks at his hands, his long fingers fiddling nervously.

Ziva glances at McGee, and for a moment there is some kind of silent communication between then. Ziva smiles at him, and points to Rav, who is the perfect picture of despair. McGee rolls his eyes and takes another chair, and sits besides the worried Alpha.

"Then, there's only one thing you can do."

"What would that be?"

McGee looks around for a while, until his eyes land on Ziva, who walks towards the male Alpha and sits on the chair on his other side. This way, Rav finds himself sandwiched between the two NCIS agents.

"You have to seduce her," says Ziva to Ravlir, but her gaze is firmly set on McGee as she says that.

"Seduce her?" he looks from one agent to the other. "How the hell am I supposed to do that?"


	29. Meeting the other half of my soul

_**Chapter 28: Meeting the other half of my soul**_

Ravlir walks down the corridor, and slows down before the arch that leads to his own room. In it, the other half of his soul lies, and he freezes before he crosses the threshold. For centuries, he had despaired, as he had seen the hopelessness in the eyes of the males of his clan, as their few Betas were taken as slaves to other clans, leaving them in a desperate situation.

As the law of their species dictated, only a handful of alpha females were born in each generation for each clan. Each Beta female was able to produce only male hatchlings and other Beta females. They were very sought after by those clans who were interested to increase the numbers of their foot soldiers. But their powers were limited, not having the full brunt of power the Alphas had.

Only the Alpha females carried within them the full spectrum of power and magic of the clan, and thanks to that, only Alpha females could conceive other Alpha females. A male Alpha could be born to a Beta pair, but only Alpha females conceived other Alphas females.

The greater the number of Alpha females in a clan, the stronger the power and magic was said clan could yield. However, the Green clan, reduced to only Ravlir as the sole Green male Alpha in his generation, was on the brink of extinction.

Unless he was able to convince the frail figure, laying on his bed, to save his clan and family of a sad certain end.

He enters his room, and approaches the huge dragon sized bed. Its white linens and pillows almost completely hide the small breathing form, laying right in the middle of it.

He climbs the steps to the bed, and looks at frail form of the female Alpha fate was merciful enough to put into his path.

He studies her face for a moment, and he is surprised by her beauty and youth. Her pale skin is so white that it is almost like china, and her long dark eyelashes make fascinating shadows against her pale skin.

Her full lips are the color of cherries, ready to be plucked by his desire. Her long dark hair makes a dramatic contrast against the white linens.

He lowers his eyes to her chest, and gulps at her loveliness. She's perfect all over, blessed with a tiny waist that is barely revealed by her form against the linens, crowned with legs as far as the eye can see. He frowns as he sees her moving in her sleep, and a small moan of pain escapes from her lips.

The Reds had hurt her during their attack, and now she is stuck to her human form until the wounds are healed. He wonders that she must be just a hatchling in her dragon form, just a couple of centuries old. He closes his eyes for a moment and shivers as his nostrils are filled with the scent of a fertile female dragon, scent that drove many dragons to insanity throughout the ages and started many wars.

He sits down beside her form, and delicately takes one of her fragile white hands in his tanned ones. He traces the veins on it, where her precious blood runs bringing nutrients to her limbs, and he's surprised with the callouses on her palm, as a result of hours of hard work.

He then thinks about what the humans said about wooing and seduction, and he sighs, as, regardless of what he thinks of the future of his clan, he knows that the humans are right. He can not force her into choosing him only because he is her only choice, but because he is the best choice for her.

He will protect her, love her and cherish her forever, but he has to convince her of his sincerity first, and that's going to be his real battle from now on.

_Maybe it would be easier to battle some Reds,_ he thinks, and prepares himself to wait. It will be a long night.


	30. Nightly battles

_**Chapter 29: Nightly battles**_

The humans divide themselves into groups, and settle down into some of the several guest rooms of the underground complex. Sarin gives blankets and pillows to them, and retires to his own room down the corridor. Trink apparently decides to sleep by the kitchen, close to Rav's best liquor.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"Do you think she will accept him?" Scully asks Mulder, as he prepares their beds in the room they would share. He moves the duvet for Scully, fluffing the pillows so she may lie comfortably against them.

Mulder finally takes his shoulder holster off and sits down on his own fluffy bed, feeling every one of his years by the burning of his back muscles and the scratches from the battle.

"I hope so. The possibility of her not accepting him is too terrifying to think about." He lifts his eyes from his hands to Scully's face, who is staring at him with her usual deep thought face, the one she has when she is trying to figure out some scientific reason to debunk his theories. She had seen and heard amazing things these last twenty four hours. She had been hurt by a mythological creature that came out of their worst nightmares, and still she was here, by his side. Always.

"Being given a glimpse of their world is a blessing and also a curse."

"I thought you would be jumping up and down with enthusiasm for finally finding proof of at least some of your theories."

"Yeah, so did I. But you see, I think I imagined that their world would be better. Different from ours. But they face the same troubles and doubts and uncertainties that we do. The challenges are different. The stakes are higher, but still…"

"They are just trying to live another day," says Scully softly, and Mulder nods.

"They are just trying to live another day."

Mulder sees Scully grimace as she touches her bandaged shoulder, and he stands up and goes to her side.

"Let me help you with that."

NCIS NCIS NCIS

Ziva prepares her bed in the bedroom she is supposed to sleep in, throwing fascinated glances at the colorful geodes on the walls, glistening with some magic from within giving a beautiful color to the room.

She hears a knock on the door, and goes to see who that could possibly be. She is surprised though, when she finds McGee at the other side of the door, standing in the corridor with a small fruit tray on his hand.

"Hi."

"Hi."

"We didn't have dinner tonight, and I went to the kitchen to grab something to eat and…"

He points to the fruits, and Ziva opens the door wider so he can enter her room. He looks around the room, and smiles at the colors on the walls.

"Nice."

Ziva nods, takes the fruit tray and walks around him towards as small writing table. She deposits the fruit tray and sits in one of the chairs.

"Sarin told me that this was Rav's room as a hatchling." McGee glances at her, and finds her looking up at the colorful stone niches on the walls, "apparently his mother was an element dragon, of the earth, and she created all the amethyst geodes to train Ravlir how to create and dominate the rocks and stones."

"It's beautiful," says McGee softly. Ziva looks at McGee, and he is not looking at the stone walls, but at her.

She smiles at him uncomfortably, and he sighs. "I gotta go, good night, and enjoy the fruit…"

"Wait, McGee."

She stands and walks towards him. He stares at her barely breathing.

"What … ah…"

"Ziva, we're friends," says McGee firmly. "I had no intention of making you uncomfortable."

"I am not uncomfortable."

"Yes you are."

She shakes her head, and he sighs deeply. "Then why are you avoiding me?"

"I am not avoiding you."

"Yes you are."

"No, I… okay, I was, but just because whatever this is I don't want it to spoil our friendship. I value your friendship too much to throw it away just for a bling."

McGee smiles and looks around the room, his hands in his pockets.

"I'm not joking. It's not funny."

"Fling, Ziva. The word is fling."

"Whatever, but you do understand what I mean."

They look at each other, her begging him to understand her concerns.

"Do you think there is a chance?" he asks softly.

"For us?"

Deep sigh, "No, for them. They spent their whole lifetime waiting for something extraordinary to come their way, and all that time they were just a couple of blocks away from each other. Right under their noses. They were so close," he takes a step closer to Ziva, who looks up to look into his eyes, and only sees tenderness and care, and she shivers lightly, "that they could have walked by one another down the street one day, felt the heat of each other's skins for a second, but still they were apart. Do you think there is still a chance of making it right?"

They are silent for a minute, while she thinks about the answer to his question. His gaze never leaves her face, and he can see the myriad of emotions that reflect into her brown eyes.

"I think … there is a chance if they try. It won't be easy, because she's afraid of risking her heart. She probably knows that he … well, he's different from the other men… males… in her life but deep down, she's afraid."

McGee nods, and silently approaches Ziva, until they are standing just a couple of inches apart. He towers over her, and they stare at each other for a long moment, trying to convey by their eyes what they both do not dare say out loud.

McGee leans towards Ziva's face, and her eyes flicker and finally close, and she sighs mentally preparing for his kiss. However, he doesn't kiss her lips, leaning his face to her neck and running his soft full lips over her cheek. He finally whispers into her ear, and she feels goosebumps covering all her skin.

"There's nothing to be afraid, Ziva. I would never hurt you."

She keeps her eyes closed, and shivers as she feels his lips leaving her ear to her neck, softly depositing kisses on it. She leans her head back, as she feels him opening his mouth and gently suckling her neck. His lips move to her cheek, leave a kiss there, and retreat.

She waits for more, but she feels emptiness in the room, and finally the noise of the door opening and closing. She opens her eyes, and he is gone, only the fruit basket as proof he had ever been into her room.


	31. Preparing for battle

_**Chapter 30: Preparing for battle  
**_

The agents wake up the following morning, and meet up in the kitchen again. They are not surprised to see Trink pouring wine into their glasses, as the small elf seemed to be particularly enthusiastic about his drinks; however they were surprised at the huge breakfast table set waiting for them.

They start eating their breakfast in friendly silence, and they all salute Sarin as he strolls into the kitchen, directly to a cupboard. He opens it and brings a top of the line espresso machine out of it, which immediately catches Gibbs' eye.

Sarin feels Gibbs' gaze burning on his back and says without turning to him, "how black do you like it?"

"As black as you can make it."

Sarin grins and puts the machine to work, and soon the fresh smell of coffee fills the room.

"You guys have magic, but still interact with human technology. That's amazing," says Mulder, staring at Sarin putting the small espresso cups under the steaming strings of coffee, his huge clawed hands clashing with the delicate china.

"Well, my mate was a bit of a tea aficionado, but you humans know how to create good stuff to eat. Coffee is a drug that magic simply can't replicate. So…"

He finishes Gibbs' coffee, serves him and sits down in a dragon sized chair, sipping his own brew. "To coffee."

Gibbs sips his cup, and smiles, "to coffee."

They hear some booted feet walking in a hurry in the corridor, and they are surprised to see the blue demon from last night standing by the kitchen door.

"Ah you're still here. Good, so I won't have to track you down. Where is Rav?"

Rav walks into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes and still with his bed hair. He glances at the humans and nods at them, before glaring at the blue demon.

"It's freaking early, what are you doing here, Scorn?"

The blue demon looks the Alpha up and down and snickers, "oh… look who had a wild night."

Rav closes the fridge forcefully and glares at Scorn, "Not that it's your business, but I've watched over the female the whole night. She had nightmares. What do you want, blue glob?"

"Oh, just because he's got a chick with him he is not friendly anymore."

"Spill it, and leave her out of your dirty mind."

Scorn turns to look at the agents, "does the name Navy Yard mean anything to you?"

All NCIS agents become alert, and Scorn curses under his breath.

"That's where NCIS headquarters is. What happened to the Navy Yard?" asks McGee, glancing at his colleagues worriedly.

Scorn looks at Ravlir, and then at the salt and pepper leader, "One of my informers in the Red combat lines sent me an encrypted message informing of an imminent attack by the Reds there. I asked specifics but he refused to give me more than that name."

The agents, along with Ducky, stand up and start getting ready to leave, drinking in a hurry their coffees and juice.

"We have to warn them," says Scully, thinking about the damage the Reds and their Orcs caused at the interchange the previous night.

McGee takes his mobile from his pocket, and sighs. There is no signal down in the lair. "Cell phone is not working."

"Any idea how big a garrison they are sending over?" asks Rav, and Gibbs walks towards the Alpha and the Blue Demon dreading to hear the answer.

"If Rhage is right, it's big. They are out for blood, as Terran was killed on their grounds and the Alpha Green they sought is AWOL."

Gibbs stares at Rav's face, and sees deep worry in it. "How bad can this be?"

"Worst than you've ever dreamed of. Sarin, go to the tribes of the north, and request immediate assistance. Inform them of the impending attack, the Reds are willing to expose all of us in retaliation to a justified killing, and the High Council will not tolerate that." Sarin nods, shimmers and disappears.

Rav looks at Trink, "Trink, you're friends with those Amazons in New Orleans. Tell them we need assistance. Give them a brief rundown of the situation, and tell them there will be orcs, plenty of orcs for them to use as target practice."

"Ah, they will love it. They'll come in a flash." Trink opens the pocket of his green vest, and touches a blood red stone, and disappears.

Rav looks at Gibbs, "how good are your people with swords?"

"Swords? You're kidding, right? We have guns, we don't need swords."

Scorn shakes his head smiling, "your bullets are just buzzing flies to a grown Dragon in full killer rage. It won't even slow them down."

"What you need is a good old sword, forged with a dragon blade," says Ravlir, thinking about what he might offer to the humans to help.

"I've practiced with swords for role playing," says McGee, and everyone stares at him for a moment. He blushes deeply, "it's quite common for the RPG I was part of."

"Role play is one thing, yielding a six pound rapier in your hand while your ass is on the line and your opponent is after your head, is another" says Rav in a serious voice.

"Come, let's go to the armory."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Once there, the agents stare at the collection of full body armors, swords and spikes on the walls, neatly organized and evenly spaced.

"I feel like I'm back to Edinburgh's Castle, in the Great Hall fully decorated with swords of old."

"I know the place," says Rav, as he opens a chest at the end of the room, looking for something inside it. "I helped decorate it back in those days."

"You did?" Ducky glances at Gibbs, who just smirks at the little piece of information given. Apparently, Dragons were active in all times of Scottish History.

"Here," Rav takes a cloth bag from the chest, and brings it to the table in the middle of the room. He reverently opens it, revealing two wicked looking daggers, with very delicate writings on the blade and precious stones on the handle.

He looks at the agents, "this is dragon steel, forged by the breath of the oldest dragons and protected by the oldest magic of our kind. The wounds made by such blade on the dragon would transfer to the human, at the same time that the wounds made on the human would transfer to the dragon."

The agents gather around the table, staring at the beautiful and deadly weapons.

Ziva looks fascinated at the weapons, and feels the compulsion to touch them. Her ears start ringing, as if a song is being played in another room, very far away.

"Only someone with magical blood running in his or her veins can touch them, as the blade needs to sing to its owner."

"What happens if someone else touches it? Someone without magic?" asks Gibbs, wondering about the rules of this new world they are entering.

"The dagger will kill them."

McGee notices Ziva's fixed stare on the daggers, and frowns as she starts moving her hand towards them.

"Hey hey Ziva NO!" She takes one of the daggers in her hand before Gibbs or McGee can stop her, and a faint ringing like music is heard in the room. Rav looks smirking at Ziva, and nods to Scorn who dances over the balls of his feet.

"Ziver, are you ok?" Gibbs glares at the dragon and the blue demon, and turns at Ziva who is frowning at the blade.

"Why is it singing to me?"

She glances at Rav, who walks back to his chest, looking for another weapon for the humans.

"You have Fey blood in your veins. Remki told me how you battled by his side," he takes another something from the chest and deposits it on the table. "Only Feys battle with such fury and keep going unhurt."

"You set her up," says McGee, furious at the Green Alpha's stratagem to lure Ziva to pick the blade.

"One way or another, her inheritance would catch up with her."

He opens another cloth, unveiling now a beautiful broadsword, its sheath in very old iron was completely covered in writing in some old language.

"What's that?"

Rav takes the sword from the sheath and shows the perfect blade beneath, very sharp and deadly, shining in the faint indirect light of the magical lights on the ceilings -and in the niches.

"This is a dragonsword. Use this and the wounds inflicted into a dragon's skin won't heal with our magic."

Rav stretches his arm, offering the handle of the sword to McGee.

He looks astonished at the weapon, then at Alpha Green and his colleagues.

"I can't take it."

"Sure you can."

"How can you be so sure I won't use it against you and any of yours?"

"That's a risk I'm willing to take but… Only dragon friends can use a dragonsword and not be driven insane by its power. And a blood pact must have been made before you are able to yield the blade."

"What kind of blood pact?" asks Gibbs, his eyes going from McGee to Rav, who is looking at McGee with yellow, not hazel eyes.

"She almost sacrificed her life for you. Same thing the other way around."

Gibbs studies McGee, who throws a glance at Ziva who is playing with her new daggers and at the dragonsword. He stretches his hand towards the handle, just to have his wrist grasped by Rav's hand.

"Kid, think about it. Once you touch it, it will be forever part of your life, and the life of any progeny you might have. There's no going back."

Rav releases McGee's wrist and takes a step back, just waiting for his decision. McGee takes the sword by the handle and silently slides it out of the sheath, the blade shining under the light.

"It's light. Not heavy at all." He tries some moves with it, and he's astonished with how comfortable he is with the blade.

"Actually it is," says Scorn. "It's the magic within that makes it seem lighter than it really is. I've tried lifting that thing and even with my demon strength I couldn't lift its tip from the floor.

Tony looks at his Probie yielding a sword and looks around the room, for anything he might use. Same thing with Mulder. Scully's shoulder was still smarting a little, so they would take her only for support.

"Anything else we might know or use?" asks Gibbs.

"These are the most magically charged. You may take everything in this room, but with normal blades, if you hurt the dragon, you only hurt the dragons. Same thing if a normal blade hurts a human."

"Only the human is hurt." Scully thinks about Kismet's wounds, ad smiles " that's why only her human was wounded with the knife. She was attacked, she was painfully hurt, but only her human was hurt.  
Mulder walks towards one of the axes on the wall and takes it from its hanging fixture.

"I believe we have some Reds to fight."


	32. Final battle

_**Chapter 31: Final battle  
**_  
Scorn brings the humans to NCIS, finding a chaotic scene when they arrive. Lines after lines of orcs are gathered on the parking lot, and six Red Dragons are evenly spaced between them. The marines were shooting at them, but still, not making much difference.

They rush into the building and find Vance organizing groups to fight the invasion, and he glares at agents venomously as he sees the blue demon by their side.

"Take that abomination out of my bullpen."

"This abomination is here to help," says Scorn, strolling by Vance and going to look at their battle plan.

"How badly hit are we, Vance?" asks Gibbs as soon as he is within hearing distance.

"They started this war, but we are going to end it. They cut our power lines, our auxiliary generators and they are jamming communications. We tried to request help from the Marine base at the other side, but we don't know if they got our message. We need backup."

Gibbs looks over Vance's shoulder, and smiles, "Backup just arrived."

Vance looks up at Gibbs, and then turns around towards where he is looking. There, a skinny woman in bright pink shirt and spiky blond hair seems to materialize out of thin air, along with a short man in a green vest.

She smiles a bright smile, her pointy nose crunching a little, and approaches the two older men.

"We've heard you have an orc infestation. Where are they?"

Gibbs signals with his head, "outside in the parking lot."

The ditzy woman goes to the windows and squeals with glee  
as she sees the lines of orcs surrounding the building.

"Who the hell is she?"

Each second that passes, more strange things happened around Vance, and he wasn't a happy camper with that.

"I have no idea, but I think she is an Amazon."

She claps her hands excitedly, and turns to Trink, "lots and lots of orcs, can we kill then now?"

Trink takes the blonde's hand and kisses her small hand. "Sure, my prettie, have a ball."

She whistles, and several other skinny women appear around her, each more armed than the other. She also magically changes her clothes: now she is dressed in tight leather pants and vest, and several weapons were hanging from her.

"Girls let's play. I want to make a bet. The winner is the one who hits one hundred dead orcs mark first. Who is with me?"

All women raise their hands.

The skinny woman smiles, "Let's kill some orcs."

NCIS NCIS NCIS

What followed was a battle of epic proportions. Besides the amazons – the crazy skinny women who acted like killing machines, screeching whenever they beheaded an orc - demons and other night creatures all got together and started fighting side by side with the humans, trying to diminish the numbers of the orcs.

Ziva jumped right in the middle of the battle, and Remki, the dwarf, found her battling some disgusting orcs and promptly offered her some help.

McGee was very surprised with his own ability with the sword, and battled side by side with Scorn as they opened trenches in the enemy lines.

Mulder, Tony and Gibbs were wielding normal swords - as normal as a sword can be for Federal agents - and helped the cutting and slicing session.

Ducky and Scully helped in the triage of wounded, and organized a makeshift hospital wing to treat those hurt in the battle.

Once the Reds saw that their orcs were not gaining space, they opened their wings and fly, and prepared for an aerial attack.

But before they plunged in formation towards the NCIS building, they were intercepted mid flight by Golden, Blue and Turquoise dragons, ten in total against the seven Reds, and the skies were filled with their roars.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Kismet blinks slowly and opens her eyes and for a moment she can't recognize where she is as she finds herself in a strange room. With difficulty, she leaves the bed and follows the noise of running water. She realizes she is in a Dragon's lair, a very beautiful one, with tall ceilings and beautiful crystals on the walls.

She reaches a small lake room, where an underground fountain fills a pond with deep blue water. She leans on the margin, and drinks the sweet water, and washes her face. The noise of the waterfall on the back covers all noise in the cave, so she doesn't notice that there is someone swimming under the water.

She shrieks scared when a male dragon suddenly jumps out of the water, his human body totally wet. He shakes his head and droplets fly towards her, getting her wet.

"What… are you ok, milady?"

She tries to run, but she is weak and terrified and can't move from where she fell to floor.

"Milady?"

He approaches her with care, as one would approach a wounded animal in a forest and Ravlir is relieved to see some kind of recognition in her eyes as she looks at him.

She recognizes him as the male Green who helped them escape from the bridge.

"You exist."

"Yes, milady. I do."

He kneels before her, and stretches his hand towards her, offering assistance to stand up.

"Please, do not be afraid of me. Take my hand."

She stares at him, then at his hand then at him again. Rav tries to keep his face as friendly as possible, as he doesn't want to scare the female away.

She frowns at him, confused at his actions. He didn't attack her, and he was trying to be helpful. It must be some kind of trick.

"What do you want from me?"

Ravlir, still on his knees before the female Alpha, chuckles.

"I want your future, milady."

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Gibbs shoots down another orc, then slices another one who rushes towards him. He is fighting side by side and a three horned demon, named with the boring name of Simon.

The demon guts another orc who tries to attack the human behind his back.

Gibbs nods his gratefulness and the demon just smiles and jumps on the back of another orc, breaking its neck.

"We need some kind of distraction until the reinforcements come," shouts Trink, as he steps over an orc and pokes the orc dead several times.

"How long until they arrive?" asks Ziva loading her automatic weapon.

"I have no idea."

"Ah man..."

Ziva, Tony and Mulder get their loaded weapons and keep shooting the orcs, and using their blades whenever it is possible.

Suddenly, there is a roar of thunder in the sky, and all humans and dragons alike look up, and find some kind of vortex in the sky above NCIS, as if a tornado is starting to be formed but there is no sign of clouds in the sky. Lightening starts coming out of the vortex and hitting the Red dragons fighting with the other clans.

Gibbs smiles, "that's the distraction what we were waiting for," he points to the Red Dragons still fighting, now a little bit dazed. "Shoot then down."


	33. New beginnings

_**Chapter 31: New beginnings  
**_  
Ravlir forces himself to stay immobile, kneeling before the female Alpha, as she decides their fate. No sound could be heard in the room but their breathing.

He shivers as he feels a tentative touch on his head and it slowly slides from his hair to his face, the fingertips slowly touching his eyebrows, his cheek. He can't help the temptation and turns his head, and kisses the palm of the hand touching him.

He smiles as he feels her trembling, and takes her hand and presses against his face, trying to absorb the heat of her skin on his own. He lifts his head, and looks at the Alpha.

She is staring fascinated at him, as if she can't believe she's touching him on her own free will.

"What's your name, my lady?"

Her gaze moves from where she's touching his cheek, to  
his eyes, and Ravlir is overwhelmed with the innocence he can see in her eyes.

"Kismet," she says softly, almost a whisper.

He takes her hand and moves it against his lips, and deposits a kiss in the open palm. He closes his eyes as her scent intensifies, and he has to force his dragon back for a moment as he doesn't want to scare the female.

"Would you accept me as your mate, Kismet?" he asks softly, not lifting his eyes from the soft delicate hand in his own bigger ones.

"Will you protect me from the others?"

He glances at her face, and her serious eyes are fixed on his face, measuring his sincerity.

"With my life, if necessary."

Her gaze does not waver from his face as she slowly nods. Ravlir feels relief and joy flooding his being, and his dragon roars wanting to come out, but he again silences it. He lets go of her hand as he slowly stands up, his bigger form towering over the Alpha.

She is tall, taller than other females of their race, but he is an Alpha. He sees her eyes becoming huge with fright, and he forces himself to take a step away from her.

He stretches his hand, silently asking her to follow him.  
She slowly stretches her own hand, and deposits it on his, and they move slowly through the corridors of his cave towards his bedroom. His eyes are never away from her face, and she would steal glances of his face, then look at the floor, blushing prettily.

Once in Ravlir's bedroom, he slowly guides her to the steps that lead to the bed, and in a swift movement takes her in his strong arms, and deposits her on the middle of the big sleeping platform.

He kneels before the blushing Alpha, and slowly lifts one hand to her neck. He massages her tense neck, and she leans her head to the right to give him access. Her breathing starts to speed up, and his hand slides from her neck to her shoulder, his fingers tangling with the neckline of her camisole. He slowly undoes the tie that holds it into place and without taking his eyes from her face, lowers the white fabric, letting her bare to his eager eyes.

He breathes deeply, as he looks down at her, then he looks up again into her eyes, which are studying every and each move he does. He slowly leans towards her, his gaze never leaving hers eyes, until his lips softly touch her cheek.

He kisses the soft skin and with one trembling hand moves her hair out of his way and slowly starts depositing kisses down her neck.

He feels her shiver, then he stops. He leans back a little just to look at her face and smiles faintly as she is with her eyes closed, breathing deeply.

She opens her eyes when she feels that he stopped, and looks at him with her big scared eyes.

"Are you fine with this, milady?"

She opens her mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. Finally she nods.

He takes her pale hand, and starts depositing kisses in the palms, without taking his eyes from hers. He doesn't want to scare her, she's too precious for him.

Finally, he moves his hands to her shoulders, and slowly guides her to lay down on the pillows on his bed.

He lays beside her, and kisses her.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Suddenly, there is a whistle from the vortex above NCIS, and fireworks shots start coming out of it.

Gibbs' gaze is fixed in it until feels the ground shaking. He looks to his right side, and a big Red Dragon is running full throttle at him. He points his gun and starts shooting it, but it doesn't slow down the beast, who opens its filthy mouth and gets ready to attack him.

He sees its sharp teeth and the rests of other prey in its mouth, and the bad breath of rotten flesh coming towards him. He hears his agents shouting, but he keeps shooting the beast.

Well, that's an interesting way to die, he thinks.

The beast is upon him, and raises its head to attack him.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Kismet moans in pain and Ravlir stops, freezing as he feels her becoming tense at his invasion of her body.

He lifts his head from her neck, and their eyes meet. She is looking at him with tears on her eyes, in pain as he takes her innocence.

Ravlir thinks on his struggles to reach this very moment, and the hopelessness and anger he had felt as he imagined that he had failed his duty to his clan. For centuries, he had despaired, imagining that he would never find a mate. Yet, here she is, in his arms.

"It's just a moment, it will get better." He whispers, and grimaces ordering his body to keep unmoving.

She finally relaxes after some moments, and runs a hand over his back. He smiles at her, and she smiles back, and he kisses her deeply, slowly resuming his movements.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

Suddenly, the Red is attacked by a Green shadow that forces it away from Gibbs rolling. Gibbs looks at the rolling forms, and has to blink again as he sees a very big Green Dragon fighting the red.

He looks up again, and he is astonished to notice that several Green dragons are coming through the vortex, flying straight to the Reds and turning the tide of the battle. They attack the Reds viciously, and slowly force them to retreat.

A Green dragon flies very low and Gibbs sees a human on its back, just a teenager, who stretches her hand to him.

"Wanna a ride, Gibbs?"

After a moment of hesitation, Gibbs takes her hand and climbs on the back of the dragon, sitting on some type of saddle which automatically keeps him on the dragon's back firmly.

"Take this, and point to the scales in the underbelly."

The young woman with a long red ponytail says. she starts shooting the dragons with her strange weapon, her aim always true.

Gibbs tests the gun, and it is very powerful, shooting down the dragons from sky as if they were ducks.

The creatures on the ground battle start cheering, and the creatures and the agents start shooting and slicing with renewed vigor the orcs and any Red dragon on the ground. After all, the Red ones still in the air, the Greens are promptly throwing to the ground to be killed.

The Green Gibbs and the red head are flying zigzag in the sky, and Gibbs can clearly see that each Green Dragon has a human rider, and they are using some kind of elaborated weapon to shoot the Reds down. Their shouts of triumph fill the air, and he has to shake his head at their enthusiasm while flying these magnificent beasts.

Finally, the Reds retreat, and the orcs teleport out, and they leave the destruction of the battle field in their place. The Blue, Turquoise and Golden dragons cheer, and the other creatures look proudly at the humans. Maybe, just maybe they are not as puny as they thought.

The three horned demon walks towards Gibbs and shakes his hand, then turns to the small army of Green Dragons who land gracefully side by side.

Curiously, all fifteen green dragons have human riders, who are carefully put on the floor by their beasts once the dragons land on the parking lot of NCIS.

Gibbs slowly approaches the tall woman with a red ponytail, and up and close he notices that she's nothing more than a teenager, probably not older than seventeen.

"Who are you?"

She laughs delighted, and glances at her colleagues, who are also very young, several teenagers between fifteen and twenty years old. She then turns to him and studies his face with care.

"Come on Dad, you don't recognize your own daughter?"

"What?"


	34. Forever grateful, forever bound

_**Chapter 33: Forever grateful, forever bound  
**_  
Kismet moans and bites her lower lip, her fingers sinking like claws on the bed as Ravlir bites her neck and presses himself deeper against her, closing his eyes as he finally reaches his climax, filling the fertile Alpha with his seed.

He feels tears gathering at his eyes, as he had believed that his Clan had been condemned to extinction. But he had been given a gift, and he would love and cherish his mate forever.

He lifts his head and kisses her deeply. He smiles a very possessive smile as her scent changes, from untouched female to mated one, announcing to the world of dragons that she is taken.

Still united, he kisses her neck and closes his eyes, trying to use his magic to feel within her body. He smiles lazily when she moves against him as she feels his mental fingers touching her, scanning her body from within.

Finally, his mind's eye finds what he was looking for. He lifts his head from her neck and he looks into her eyes and shows her what he found.

Both close their eyes and focus on the two small precious lives that were created in their joining, and slowly start to create the parental bond with the still developing hatchlings.

NCIS NCIS NCIS NCIS

"What?" he looks stupefied at the redhead who simply laughs again and runs to him and hugs him.

"I can't believe that I got to see you here, in your time." She takes a step back, and looks at his face. Gibbs stares stupefied at the blue smiling eyes staring in awe at him. The same blue eyes he sees everyday in his mirror.

"Mom is right, you were gorgeous with that silver hair," says the red head looking him up and down.

"How?"

The Green Dragon standing behind the redhead shimmers, and a beautiful blonde woman in a long white formal dress appears before them, and approaches father and daughter.

"Once you offered help and shelter to Kismet, your life and the life of your children were intertwined with the fate of the dragons."

A tall gangly teenager, with dark brown hair and bright green eyes and an easy smile, approaches DiNozzo, and nods to him. Tony looks at the boy, up and down, and is stupefied as he sees himself in him.

"Hi Dad."

Tony gulps, and Ziva starts snickering at Tony's scared face.

"Hi, Aunt Ziva."

She gulps, and stops laughing.

Mulder looks at another redhead girl, who smiles at him and hugs him by his middle. "This is a miracle."

"Not a miracle, dad," she looks up at him, with deep blue eyes he would recognize anywhere, "magic."

"How?" Jimmy looks at a short white teenager with long black hair with blue eyes and freckles, who approaches him with a big smile beside a tall blond man, who was her dragon.

"Hi Dad, this is Rhage." She points to the Green Alpha, who stretches his hand to Palmer. "I'm his rider." She leans against Rhage's chest, and he hugs her with care.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Palmer."

Palmer blinks from the tall blond to the short brunette, who identified herself as his daughter, and says the first thing that passes through his mind, "I'm not a doctor yet."

Jimmy mechanically shakes hands with the Alpha, who simply smiles an enigmatic smile, "but you will be."

McGee looks at the families being reunited, and notices a smiling blonde teenager, not older than fifteen, holding hands with a tall brunette woman. Both approach him, and he feels his insides turning in apprehension.

He looks from the brunette to the young girl, who smiles at him, her green eyes shimmering with tears.

"You are…" his brain refuses to complete the sentence, but he feels his heart constricting when she nods.

He opens his arms, and the teenager runs to his arms and hugs him, and McGee can't help the tears running on his face.

He looks at the tall brunette, and notices that she is also crying silently.

He takes a step back, cups his daughter's chin on his hand and wipes her tears. She looks at him fascinated, as if trying to memorize his features.

"Mama didn't want to let me come, but the dragons needed their riders, and I'm Maxim's rider since I was five. I couldn't not come, especially if I had the chance of seeing you here."

McGee shakes his head, and hugs the teenager again, and looks at the tall blond, Green Alpha for Gibbs's daughter.

"How?"

The Green Alpha smiles, "Ravlir and Kismet union healed the Green clan, and their descendants fulfilled the Elementals requirements. Today is the first of many losses for the Reds, until they are subjugated forever. The other clans will start living pacifically with each other, and the Green Clan will forever will be indebted to you."

She looks at Gibbs and smiles at her rider, who is beaming at her father, Gibbs.

"In exchange of our protection, your children were chosen by the Elementals as our riders. Each generation of yours will forever be protected by our Clan, and each generation of us will be deeply connected to your offspring."

The regal woman leans her head, and says, "Eternally grateful, eternally bound."

Gibbs looks at the young girl in his arms, and says still shaken with the news, "but I don't have children, not anymore."

The red head teenager smiles, "not yet, but you will have." She kisses his cheek, and runs to her Dragon's side.

The regal Green Alpha puts her hands on her shoulder, and smiles at Gibbs, "what several dragons had forgotten is that full blooded Green, conceived from a male and female Green Alpha, is able to bend the laws of time, being able to come to the past and future as we wish. We're guardians of the timeline, and the true watchers of the humans."

She kisses the teenager's forehead, and takes a step towards Gibbs, and takes his hands in her hands.

"Don't worry about the future: it will come regardless of how much you worry about it. Rejoice in your present, and dream about the glimpse of the future you all were given today."

She leans, kisses him in the cheek, and whispers only to his ears, "thanks for saving my mother."

She takes a step back, and looks at the teenagers and the green dragons.

"Riders of Charin, prepare to depart!" she shouts, and the tall blond humans take some steps back and shimmer, and in their place magnificent Green Dragons stand instead, their scales shining in the sunlight. The teenagers kiss their respective parents on their cheeks, saying goodbye before departing.

The tall teenager with black hair hugs Tony, He smiles a boyish smile, so similar to Tony's and waves goodbye. He rushes to his dragon, who gently takes him its gigantic front paws and lifts him to his seat on its back.

"See you later, Pa."

McGee tightens his hold on his small daughter, unwilling to let her go. "What is your name?"

She shakes her head, "I'm not supposed to tell you, but you will find out soon."

She steps out of his arms, and he stills holds onto her hand, "who is your mother?"

She laughs, her laughter filling his heart with joy, "you will find out, soon."

"How soon?"

She walks to her dragon, who gently takes her in paw, and puts her sitting on her back.

"Soon enough."

She looks down at him, beaming.

McGee can't help his pride at his daughter, sitting over a gigantic Green beast as if it was just a poney.

"Dad?" she shouts to be heard from where she is.

"Yeah."

"When I'm eight, and I accidentally melt your collection of very rare Jazz LPs during one of my scientific experiments, please don't get too mad at me."

McGee laughs and nods.

"I won't."

They look at each other, two generations meeting under extraordinaire circumstances.

The red head teenager watches the other teenagers mounting their Green Dragons, and nod to the Blue and Turquoise Dragons who were watching them.

A dark Blue Alpha approaches and bows to the Green Alpha, saluting her, "So the Elementals are finally satisfied with the terms of this cease fire."

The Green Alpha nods, "The Reds will be properly punished, and the clans will finally be allowed to live peacefully. No clan will ever again suffer the threat of extension as us Greens suffered."

A Golden Delta looks around at the dead bodies of creatures on the parking lot and at the destruction on the NCIS building.

"Now, we have to help our new allies to rebuild."

The Green Alpha nods, "Not only rebuild the material  
things, but rewrite the future." She looks at Gibbs and his Team, and leans her head in respect.

"See you in the future, my lord."

Gibbs nods, a big smile on his face, looking at the Green and his daughter, sitting majestically as an Amazon.

"See you in the future."

The red head smiles at her father, raises her right arm, and shouts a warrior's cry, which all the other teenagers imitate, filling the air with youthful voices.

The Green Dragons open their wings, and jump into the air, their flight path a beautiful ballet in the air, circling up as the graceful creatures they are.

The humans on the ground hear the laughter of the teenagers riding in perfect synchrony with their Dragons, and flinch when another Vortex is created in the sky. The roar of the wind increases, and the lightening forces them to cover their eyes. The wind speed increases, and slowly each of the fifteen green dragons fly directly to the heart of the vortex, disappearing into the future.

The last Dragon, the Green Alpha with Gibbs' daughter as her rider, still flies another circle in the air before roaring her joy into the air. She does a swirl, and flies directly into the vortex, disappearing into it.

As dragon and rider fly into the vortex, it collapses into itself, and the wind dies down, and the sky opens again, becoming bright blue without clouds.

The humans stare at the sky, for a moment wanting to see again their progeny again, but to everything under the skies there is a right time.

And their time is not now.

Yet.

The wind blows softly against their faces, and the Dragons and creatures on the ground looks around and start gathering the dead and the wounded, cleaning up the battle ground.

Gibbs lowers his head, and looks around, and sees the same amazed expression on the faces of his team. McGee's eyes cross with his, and there is a placid smile on his youngest agent face.

There is a future, and it is damn worth fighting for it.


	35. Storybook endings

_**Epilogue: Storybook endings**_

_**"I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls." Bible  
**_  
Apparently, there are advantages of having Dragons as your allies. They cleaned up the parking lot in record time, and rebuilt with magic the portions of the walls that had been destroyed by the vicious attack of the Red Army.

From the human's side, there were only ten dead and five wounded, while the losses on the other side had been considerable, it had only made a small dent on their army.

The demons and other creatures saluted the fierce humans, and left their premises, leaving finally only the old Green Sarin perched in its small form on the stairwell railing over the bullpen, watching the comings and goings of the humans.

Sarin offered to erase the memories of all those involved in the fight, so they might remember only a terrorist attack against the NCIS building. In the end, after consulting Director Vance, it was agreed that, in order to protect the Dragons and their world, only the Team Gibbs and Mulder and Scully would retain their memories of the actual events.

The two FBI agents left, satisfied of being given a glimpse of something extraordinary. Unfortunately the world was not ready to know about them yet.

All the others had their memories changed, and were commenting about the eventful day that a daring terrorist cell tried to take over NCIS, when the elevator dinged and a happy couple stepped out of it.

Gibbs lifts his eyes from the papers he is reading, and sees Ravlir and Kismet walking towards them. Rav has a huge smile splitting his face, and if the loving looks he is throwing to Kismet were any indication, things were good between the couple.

Tony stands up, and stretches his hand for Rav to shake, "Man, it's good to see you."

Rav shakes it energetically, and without letting his arm go from Kismet's shoulder, turns to Gibbs and offers his hand for a firm handshake.

"I don't have enough words to thank you for all you have done for me and my Clan."

Gibbs smiles, and looks at Kismet, who smiles shyly at him.

"We are the ones who have to thank you."

McGee stands up and looks at the couple, and smiles at Kismet, "the just married look is good on you two."

Kismet blushes, and looks down to the floor, "Thanks, Agent McGee."

"Well, actually, we were planning a small ceremony, and we would like to invite you. It will be in my private island in the Caribbean islands, you will love it."

"Sure. You can count us in," says Gibbs, smirking at the couple.

Trink comes out of nowhere, with a beer bottle in his hand. "You guys should stock up with better stuff, this thing can curdle a man's insides."

"This is a Federal Building, you're not supposed to drink in here."

"Why not? I was almost killed, I should have the right of having a pint." He promptly turns the bottle and dries it, bringing giggles from Kismet and laughter from Ravlir.

"My dear Kismet, this is Trink, drunk elf extraordinaire. I don't think you two have been properly introduced."

"Nice to meet you, girly. You look nicer when you are not bleeding like a stuck pig."

She smirks and looks at Rav, "he's very charming as well."

"Nah, he's very useful to have around."

"Really? How?"

He hugs her by her waist, and supports his chin on her neck, which promptly brings more giggling from her and condescending looks from the NCIS agents.

"I like using him like a foot rest. He's the right height."

"Hahahah, so not funny," mutters the elf. He walks up to Tony. "They think I'll help them, but I won't help with the babies, me fine beard can't handle baby dragons, no way."

Kismet laughs again, "We could always use him as a nanny. What do you think?"

"No, no, no way. I remember dealing with baby dragons, and you know what I remember the most? Fire. Yes. They set fire in everything. Specially the nannys. No way. When the baby is born, I'm going to hide myself with Rav's best port in a cave and I'm not leaving until the kids are out their hormonal teens."

Kismet glances at McGee and winks at him, "we could always put him into diaper duty."

"No way, what part of no you can't understand? I won't clean up and I won't burp baby dragons. They burp fire! No way, I'm out of here."

Trink waves his goodbyes to the agents and gets another beer bottle from one of his several pockets, and walks to the elevators, muttering about fire burping dragons.

As soon as Trink is out of their hearing, Kismet, Rav and the agents start laughing hysterically, and Kismet and Rav say their goodbyes.

Before leaving though, Kismet goes up to McGee and takes his hand into hers, and kisses his cheek.

"Thank you."

"For what? You are the one that saved my life."

"Yet it was thanks to you and your people that there is a future for the Green Clan. I won't ever be able to be grateful enough for what you've all done."

Rav puts a hand on her shoulder, signals for Sarin to fly over him and they leave with Sarin firmly perched on Rav's shoulder.

Tony stares at their backs as they leave, and stands beside Ziva, who is watching the departing couple with a smile on her lips.

"Do you think we will see them again?"

"Ah, I'm sure we will."

THE END?

* * *

a/n: Thanks for enjoying this Dragon tale.

The next one in this universe is Timmy and the Dragon. Thanks for all those who reviewed and gave me a glimpse of what you think of this so far.

Kos


End file.
